CNN
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Elephants will never forget – where the snacks are stored.
A large wild elephant was caught off guard at a convenience store in Thailand, where he wobbled around the store in search of food on Monday.
Hungry mammals can be seen in CCTV footage where they enter the store and help out snacks.
“It was a little late that day. At about 2pm, the elephant quickly walked away. I came out and tried to drive it away. I told him not to get close.”
“I said, ‘Walking away, keeping up,’ but I didn’t listen. It seemed to come intentionally. ”
The shop in Thailand’s Nahon Ratchasima province, northeast of the capital Bangkok, is located near Khao Yai National Park, so elephants are often nearby.
“We usually see it passing by and looking from inside the house. But it didn’t come to the store before or hurt anyone,” she said.
The elephant – a 27-year-old man known as Ply Bian Lekh – is well known in the area.
Khamploi said it stayed in the store for about 10 minutes, picked it and ate it. Wild elephants usually prefer bananas, bamboo and grass, but Bian Lek went straight for sweets.
“It was walking to the counter – a candy counter near the freezer. We used the trunk to keep the freezer out of the way and fit inside,” she said.
“It went straight to the snacks and picked them up with the trunk. It had about 10 bags of sweets. They were 35 baht ($1) each. We also had dried bananas and peanut snacks.”
Another elephant remained outside the store, “probably waiting,” Kampoli said.
The Park Rangers were called and were able to guide the elephant after many coaxial and dropouts in the end.
“He’s here often, but he doesn’t hurt anyone. I think he just wanted a snack,” Kampoli said.
After an unexpected visit, the wildlife conservation group stopped by and offered 800 baht campoloi for stolen goods.
“They said they are sponsoring the Elephant Snacks Bill. That was kind of funny,” she said.
Elephants, a national animal in Thailand, have seen a decline in the wild population in recent decades due to threats from tourism, logging, poaching, and human invasion of their habitat.
Experts estimate that the population of wild elephants in Thailand has decreased from over 100,000 in the early 20th century to 3,000-4,000.
A group of local volunteers from Khao Yai are working to keep the elephants in the park away from residential areas.
“Elephant behavior has changed from looking for food in people’s orchards and farms to frequent visits to human homes,” resident and volunteer Sanonsak Chang-in, 44, told CNN.
Elephant Bian Lek had “raided” several other locations prior to Monday’s incident, and Sanonsack even injured the tip of the trunk after smashing a glass cupboard at a local home.
“He currently lives in a village that is unusual for wild elephants. They don’t seem to want to return to the mountains. It’s easy for them to stay in the house,” he said.
Human-elephant encounters are common and can be violent, Sanonsack said. There have been cases where elephants destroy cars.
There are an estimated 140-200 wild Asian elephants in Khao Yai National Park, and Sanonsak said his group is trying to keep both elephant and human areas safe.
