Late Night Kitchen Intruder Turned Out To Be a Hungry Elephant

Surreal video footage shows an elephant poking its enormous head into a kitchen in Thailand in the wee hours of Sunday, in what seemed to be an attempt to look for food.

The male Asian elephant was captured on video raiding the home of Kittichai Boodchan, a resident of Hua Hin, southern Thailand. The video was later shared in a local government public relations Facebook post.

According to the post, the elephant was scavenging for food with its trunk before finally walking away into the darkness.

“I am already used to it coming, so I was not so worried,” Kittichai, who lives in the house with his wife, told AFP. “When it doesn't get food, it just leaves on its own.”

The elephant, named Boonchuay, is no stranger to the village. According to local reports, it might have come from the sprawling Kaeng Krachan National Park, whose elephants sometimes wander into nearby communities.

The kitchen had already been wrecked by an elephant earlier this year, which incurred nearly 50,000 Thai baht ($1,570) worth of damage, said the government’s Facebook post. Local reports state that it was the same elephant that paid the kitchen a visit this week.

The largest land mammals in Asia and an endangered species, Asian elephants like Boonchuay usually weigh around 4,000 kilograms and are very powerful.

In several photos posted on Sunday afternoon, June 20, the local Huay Sat Yai subdistrict administration revealed the devastation the elephant left. There’s now a gaping hole in the kitchen and the ceiling was damaged. 

Now that the elephant is no longer in the room, the administration said it would help the family rebuild their house using donated construction materials.

Elephant sightings are pretty common around Huay Sat Yai. However, conflicts between the elephants and the local community have seen some elephants killed by illegal electric fences or gunshots. Villagers have also died in encounters with nearby elephants.

According to the local public relations office, authorities are looking into devices like GPS collars and studying the foraging ecology of the area to prevent elephants from repeatedly wandering into human communities, which is not unheard of across Asia.

Since May, a photogenic family of elephants has been spotted traversing southwestern China, passing through villages, and taking a nap along the way. They’re still on the move. 

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