‘Ping-pong’ bombs deployed in war with elephants
Thais struggle to deal with marauding animals that are tearing people apart after failed rewilding effort
IT WAS just behind the garden below the bright green palm leaves where Pae Pakdee’s limbs were ripped from his torso.
“That’s the spot,” Boonsri, his wife, said, pointing at a tree less than 200 metres away. “That’s where I found him. That’s where my heart broke.”
Pae was crossing the plantation behind their house in eastern Thailand when he encountered the animal that would rip him apart like a rag doll: a 10-foot-tall bull elephant nicknamed “Yellow”. The 73-year-old farmer’s lifeless body was mangled by the time he was found. All that was left after the fatal incident was the colourful fragments of “ping-pong” bombs that he used to scare elephants away.
The homemade orange miniexplosives, bought at the roadside, are one of the few defences helpless residents have against the marauding animals in this corner of Thailand, where conservation efforts have dramatically backfired.
A decade ago, Boonsri, 69, had never even seen an elephant in her small village, before a major push to restore the population. Efforts to bring back the animals – including a ban on hunting with a 10-year jail sentence for killing elephants – have been coupled with an ever shrinking natural habitat.
Elephants here, and in many parts of the country and world, are in conflict with humans with grisly consequences.
Taan Wannagul, a researcher at the Eastern Elephants Education Centre, said: “They grab you, they slap you against a tree, sometimes they make sure you’re dead by stepping on you or using their tusks. They can play with bodies like it’s a doll. Naturally elephants will not attack but people throw the ‘ping-pong bombs’ and make loud noises to drive the elephants away. Now [the elephants have] become more aggressive.”
Figures vary but the Eastern Elephants Education Centre has tracked 90 human fatalities in this region since 2018 – including four since The Telegraph visited a fortnight ago. Close to 100 elephants have also died nationwide.
With little to stop the animals crashing through the crops and, in some cases, their homes, elephant patrols have sprung up as a last resort.
As night fell on a recent evening, The Telegraph followed seven khaki-clad rangers and volunteers traipsing through the forest.
Their first job was to pick up some 200 ping-pong bombs from a roadside stall, where the small explosives packed into tiny plastic balls are sold amid coffee sachets and mangoes for less than a penny each. The tiny fuses are lit with a lighter or a cigarette and can take your finger off if you hold them too long.
The mission was simple, explained Thawatchai Changsarn, a park ranger. The night before, his team were tracking 20 elephants rummaging through the plantations, attempting to push the animals away from farmland and back into Khao Ang Rue Nai Wildlife Preserve. They got halfway, now they hope to finish the job.
It’s a tedious process. Armed with torches and shotguns, the men fan out across the forest, meticulously looking for any signs of elephants: fresh dung or the smell of urine, a footprint or broken foliage. They trek under the stars for hours.
Then the phone rang; another unit 60km away needed back-up dealing with an elephant that’s attacking someone’s home. We raced across the province, only to discover halfway there that the unit has successfully handled the invader.
For residents, these vigilante-style groups offer critical reassurance and assistance when the worst comes to pass but everyone here knows the teams are only part of the solution. The regions they cover are huge and resources limited even covering essential costs like fuel and staffing can be tight.
Thawatchai said: “We never have enough people to take care of the whole area, but we follow where the elephants are… and some villagers take matters into their hands to protect themselves too.”
At a nearby village hall, Taan, the researcher, is running an education session with residents, updating the community on an early warning system three years in the making.
The idea is to place 40 motionsensor cameras at strategic locations along the Khao Ang Rue Nai Wildlife Preserve border, giving people warning when the elephants are leaving the forest. Broken metal fences and breached ditches mark previous, unsuccessful attempts to keep the elephants in the national park. This time, the aim is to intercept animals on the move. Nom Klao village hall will host the “war room” with live feeds, which Taan is developing alongside the Thai government and should be operational by October.
Human and elephant clashes are a growing problem in much of Africa and Asia forcing communities to deploy alternatives including “bee fences”, where beehives are placed around farms to deter elephants from entering the land.
In Chachoengsao, in central Thailand, many residents are losing hope about the feasibility of peacefully co-existing with their larger neighbours. “In Thailand, we see elephants as sacred but after so much loss, I just don’t know if humans and elephants can live together,” said Boonsri. “The government tells us to live with them, I think it’s impossible.”
Many in Nom Klao agree and are frustrated by what they see as an “elephant-centric” government policy that puts animals above people.
Duangporn Wannakham, 56, perched on the floor of Nom Klao village hall, said: “If a person dies, the government provides 50,000 baht [£1,100] of compensation at most but if a person kills an elephant, they are fined at least 200,000 baht and maybe prison. I do not think it’s fair. There needs [to be] more balance.”
Taan agrees that population control may be necessary but adds that reforestation is also required to ensure elephants have enough space. He’s worried the opposite is happening. The government is pushing new developments and industry in the Eastern Economic Corridor, plus infrastructure projects including dams, which will further fragment the elephants’ habitats.
“It is hard to see an end to the conflict here,” he said, gesturing at the farmland surrounding his small headquarters. “But we shouldn’t give up on peace.”
The number of Asian elephants in the wild plummeted from around 100,000 at the turn of the 20th century to fewer than 3,000 in 2000 – a decline driven by poaching, logging and deforestation that left the species designated “endangered”.
The government has since reversed course, protecting Thailand’s remaining forests and wildlife reserves while strongly enforcing anti-poaching laws. Researchers estimate there are now around 4,000 in the wild, with the population growing by 8 per cent a year.
In 1961, 50 per cent of Thailand was covered by forest but this dropped to just 32 per cent by 2014, according to the World Bank. In many areas, the national parks alone are now not large enough to sustain a growing and uncontrolled elephant population so the animals are moving into eucalyptus, rubber and palm plantations near local communities, where there are increasingly aggressive clashes over critical resources: space and food.
On one stretch of highway dotted with “elephant crossing” signs, lorry drivers joke about a new road tax. Most afternoons, the animals emerge from the foliage to steal sugarcane from passing trucks.
“Elephants eat about 200kg of food each day,” said Duangporn, as a giant bull halted the traffic. “In the forest, it is like a market, generally there is food, but they have to walk all day to many spots but in human areas, it is like a big buffet.” Yet the cost of these “elephant buffets” is acute for farmers. In the villages to the north of Khao Ang Rue Nai Wildlife Preserve, almost everyone seems to have paid a price. “Friends have seen their 10-rai [four-acre] field of rice destroyed within an hour,” said Duangporn, adding that the animals are most active at night.
“Last year I lost 30 rai of jackfruit, about 20,000kg. It was worth 200,000 baht. My income for that year just vanished.”
With limited compensation available from the government, many here are instead pushed into debt to recover.
Since her husband’s sudden death, Boonsri and her two sons have taken out close to £22,000 of loans to help them recover after elephants ate their cassava crop. Now they farm eucalyptus for paper instead – it’s less profitable, but also less edible. Still, the animals are frequent visitors to the coconut, mango, jackfruit and bamboo trees in the family’s garden.
“I often see them from my window,” Boonsri said, peeking through shutters in her bedroom. Above the door frame hangs a traditional, silky orange “spirit cloth”. She hopes it will not only keep spectres away but also elephants.
‘They make sure you’re dead by stepping on you or using their tusks. They can play with bodies like it’s a doll’