Wild elephants “ambush” vehicles to survive in Thailand

KHAO-ANG RUE-NI, Thailand (AP) - These are classic, coordinated ambushes: a roadblock is set, and when vehicles stop the raiders sweep out of the thick jungle to strike their targets.

But rather than guerrillas, the attackers in Thailand’s Khao-Ang Rue-Ni wildlife sanctuary are savvy _ and desperate _ elephants, who hold up trucks loaded with sugar cane, tapioca and fruit.

For most of the year, the estimated 200 elephants live quietly in the dense forests of Khao-Ang Rue-Ni, near the Cambodian border in eastern Thailand. But with the onset of the dry season, when water and food supplies shrink, they move to the road to stage their heists and drink from a nearby reservoir, says the sanctuary’s chief, Yuo Senatham.

Conveniently for the elephants, this is also the time when hundreds of trucks rumble along the 15-kilometer (9-mile) road, laden with newly harvested tapioca and sugar cane _ particular pachyderm favorites.

According to Yuo, a herd leader usually emerges from the jungle at dusk to block the road. When a vehicle stops, other elephants move in from the rear to start gobbling up the goodies.

Roadside signs urging motorists not to feed the elephants seem superfluous.

“It’s like the drivers are bribing the elephants _ otherwise the elephants won’t allow trucks to pass through,” Yuo said, adding that the mightiest of the herd leaders, named Mae Phalaek, has never hurt a motorist and sounds a general retreat when wildlife officials arrive to shine spotlights on the culprits.

Villagers in the area also say they have never known the elephants to attack humans.

But this was no comfort for Somkuan Sirisat, who had to seek help when his tapioca-laden truck got a flat tire recently. He returned to find half a dozen elephants devouring his cargo.

“I was too frightened to go toward the truck,” said Somkuan, who rushed to the nearby sanctuary field station for help.

“We can’t prevent the elephants from roaming around the road because the area used to belong to them,” said the sanctuary chief. “What we can do is prevent them from getting hurt and hurting people.”

He explained that the Thai army cut the road through the 100,000-hectare (270,300-acre) sanctuary in the 1980s to facilitate the flow of supplies to insurgents along the Cambodian border, fighting the Cambodian government.

The plight of Thai elephants is not restricted to this reserve.

Chawal Thaphiran, who heads the Forestry Department’s Wildlife Conservation Division, estimated that of Thailand’s once vast herds, only about 3,000 wild elephants survive in national parks and other sanctuaries.

Deforestation and battered habitat have forced many to move into surrounding farming communities in search of food.

Another 2,800 elephants are domesticated, eking out a living as tourist attractions or beggars who roam Bangkok and other cities with their keepers.-AP