Hungry elephants killed foraging for food in South: NGO

Khaosod English
By
Asaree Thaitrakulpanich, Staff Reporter -

May 3, 2018 12:19 pm

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Officials examine the dead elephant Thursday morning in Prachuap Khiri Khan.

PRACHUAP KHIRI KHAN — The body of an elephant found in a pineapple field is the latest in a series of pachyderms killed after they wandered across national park boundaries to forage on farmland, an environmentalist said Thursday.
After a 10-year-old bull with 30-centimeter tusks was found dead in the Kui Buri National Park, the president of an elephant conservation group said at least six have been slain since 2011, with two killed this year alone.

“This will keep happening because there are still elephants in the forest, and the criminals have not been arrested. People and elephants are fighting over land to this very day,” said Laitongrian Meephan of the Phra Kachaban Foundation.

Wild elephants are a persistent nuisance to farmers, who deploy everything from electrified fences to defensive beehives to keep them off their land. From time to time, the animals are shot dead.

The elephant’s body was found last night in Boonlert Ngamdee’s pineapple field near in the Sam Roi Yot district of Prachuap Khiri Khan province. It had been dead for at least 48 hours. There were signs of a struggle as well as a 8-centimeter wound along his left thigh.

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“Normally this elephant sticks with a herd of seven, but lately he’s been distancing himself from the group, like he was injured and couldn’t keep up,” Charuvat Nuksiri, a parks officer said. “There’s no phone signal in the mountains here, so it’s hard to coordinate officials to help.”

Most of the elephants shot dead by farmers near Kui Buri are 10- to 12-year-old males, since adolescence sees them leave their herds to become vulnerable loners. Capt. Somchai Yoddamnernkul led a team of specialists who scanned the elephant’s corpse for metal Thursday morning. He said no bullets were found.

“We can presume for now that he was fighting another elephant and was stabbed with his tusks. Then the wound probably got infected, and he died,” Somchai said. Police are awaiting an official autopsy report. Laitongrian said that from the farmers’ perspective, elephants are invading their fields; on the other hand, environmentalists’ see farmers as the ones encroaching into the elephants’ habitat.

“National parks should hurry to find a way for wild elephants, local farmers and officials to coexist and stop the killing of elephants as soon as possible,” Laitongrian said.

The environmentalist said that elephants only exit the forest and forage when no food is available, which should not happen during the rainy season, signifying that forest conditions are abnormal.

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Hungry Elephants Killed Foraging For Food in South: NGO

Slightly different version in the Nation.

Tests are being done to determine what killed a wild elephant found dead on a Prachuap Khiri Khan pineapple plantation on Wednesday evening.

Officials suspect the animal, between five and 10 years old, succumbed to infection stemming from a fight with another bull elephant.
There was an infected wound on the left hip that appeared to be caused by a tusk.


Pol Capt Somchai Yoddamnonekul, deputy inspector in Sam Roi Yod district, and Kittipat Prempree, chief of Kui Buri National Park’s animal protection unit, led officials in examining the carcass.

Officials used a metal detector to ensure there were no bullets embedded in the body.

Wild elephant found dead in Prachuap Khiri Khan

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The environmentalist said that elephants only exit the forest and forage when no food is available, which should not happen during the rainy season, signifying that forest conditions are abnormal.

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Like, for example, when it has been cut or burned down by cunting farmers.

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Originally Posted by harrybarracuda

Like, for example, when it has been cut or burned down by cunting farmers.

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Yep.
The unnecessary encroachment returns to haunt.

Mindless consumption comes to mind.

Have any of you ever been to elephant habitat and seen the amount of feed available and how elephants forage, didnt think so.

Well I have and it has given me some understanding of how they go about things. While they are messy feeders that destroy as much as they eat and although they need between 400 and 600kg of food a day they are not hungry, there is plenty of feed because of how the herds work. Each herd has a circuit they do through the forest feeding as they go which gives the feeding grounds time to regenerate between each visit.

The plantations of pineapples bananas corn and other fruit are like ice cream and chocolate to the elephants and when their feeding route takes them close to a plantation they take advantage of it and hog in.

There are also individuals mostly young bulls that have been evicted from a herd usually for getting to interested in the females which are the property of the herd bull but there can also be females, I have seen 2 females with calves traveling separate from a herd, possibly they will get together with a young bull and form a new herd.

I have just come back from a place where there are a lot of elephants and farmers in that area have mostly planted the area close to the forests in rubber and palm oil trees that are of no interest to elephants.

However as they have no predators other than man they can increase to the stage where they eat themselves out of house and home but I know of nowhere that has happened as yet.

In this instance I have seen nothing to contradict that this elephant died of an infection from a wound and was probably in the pineapples because of its limited mobility and the ease of which it could get food there.

Yes Mr. Smartypants, but you said it yourself:

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Each herd has a circuit they do through the forest feeding as they go which gives the feeding grounds time to regenerate between each visit.

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And if farmers invade that to plant their pineapples?

Human encroachment is the biggest threat to elephant habitat, and unfortunately these chickenheads think it all belongs to them.

Sadly, some see it as "progress".

https://www.theguardian.com/environm...by-chinese-dam

^ Oh my freaking ghod. There is no hope for humanity.

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Originally Posted by Latindancer

^ Oh my freaking ghod. There is no hope for humanity.

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Chinkies again. Probably paid someone off.

Parasites.

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Originally Posted by harrybarracuda

Yes Mr. Smartypants, but you said it yourself:



And if farmers invade that to plant their pineapples?

Human encroachment is the biggest threat to elephant habitat, and unfortunately these chickenheads think it all belongs to them.

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Human encroachment is clearly the biggest threat to the planet.
Especially, as derived and historically practiced from Occidental circles/character, which have been borrowed by most populations.

The chickenheads have roots in the West.