Elephants kill 2 park rangers in Thailand in 3 days

Elephants have killed two park rangers in Thailand over a three-day period, with one incident on September 11, and the other on September 13.

The first incident occurred in a village near the Thap Lan National Park in Thailand’s central Prachinburi province. Villagers tried to push a hungry elephant back into the park after it showed up in the village looking for food. The elephant had been causing chaos and damaging people’s houses.

A park ranger, Arthit Phewngam, tried to scare the elephant with firecrackers. But the elephant retaliated and trampled on him.

The second incident occurred at a longan plantation in the eastern Chantaburi province. A group of rangers from Khlong Khrua Wai wildlife sanctuary had been trying to clear out a herd of about six elephants looking for food on the plantation.

One ranger, 42 year old Arthit Phewngam, reportedly didn’t notice that there was an elephant only about 30 metres from him. The elephant then attacked him.

Both these incidents came after several other recent incidents of people being killed by elephants that got into human areas. A 66 year old Buddhist monk was also trampled to death by an elephant in Chantaburi on September 10.

In August, an elderly woman was trampled to death by an elephant at a rubber plantation in Chachoengsao, eastern Thailand. Her daughter and granddaughter were also attacked but managed to escape.

Three days prior, a man in Hua Hin was trampled to death by wild elephants at a village near the border of Kaeng Krachan National Park.

An elephant ripped its mahout’s body in half with its tusks in Phang Nga province, southern Thailand, last month. Police suspect the elephant was annoyed at its owner for making it carry rubberwood in the hot sun.

SOURCE: Thai PBS World | The Pattaya News