Elephant moves fallen tree blocking road in Thailand (video)

An elephant moved a fallen tree blocking the Lampang – Phrae Road in northern Thailand during a storm on Monday, allowing traffic to resume as normal. The moment was captured on Facebook Live.

The owner of the elephant, Weerawat Triyot, said that he was on his way back to Chaiyaphum province after taking his 16 year old elephant Dan Siam to a festival in Phrae province, his hometown.

Shortly after leaving the festival, Weerawat got stuck in a traffic jam. The traffic came to a total standstill so Weerawat decided to get out of the car into the heavy rain and lightning and have a look at what was going on.

Four cars along, Weerawat saw a fallen tree blocking the road. He decided to let Dan Siam out of his vehicle and save the day.

On Facebook Live, Dan Siam lifts the tree and launches it over the side of the road, opening up the way for the traffic. Then, the elephant waves his trunk around and makes a loud noise as if to say, “You can go now!”

While the use of elephants for physical labour is less common now, these strong and intelligent animals once played a central role in the logging industry in Thailand.

During the reign of King Rama V (1868-1910), the demand for teakwood in the global market expanded significantly. Elephants became an essential part of the logging process, dragging heavy logs through the forest.

In the early 1900s, there were around 100,000 domesticated elephants in Thailand used not just for logging but for transportation, bridge building and construction work.

Logging destroyed the environment so much that it was banned in 1989. While life as a working elephant was tough, it was even tougher once the ban was implemented because mahouts couldn’t make enough money to feed their newly-unemployed 300 kilogramme animals.