Was it an itch that couldn’t be scratched, or just a lonely male looking for some company? The debate was triggered by a recent road rage incident involving a male elephant in Khao Yai National Park.
Looking for love?: Debate rages over why a bull elephant in Khao Yai climbed on a car.
Samchai Sanawat and his wife were driving through the park on Jan 10 when they saw a wild elephant on the two-lane road about 200 metres in front of their car. Two other vehicles in front of them managed to do quick U-turns and escape in the opposite direction, but it was too late to turn for Mr Samchai.
He stopped and the elephant swaggered up to his olive green Mercedes-Benz. Mr Samchai’s wife thought they were going to die.
“My wife was very scared and kept asking if she could get out of the car and run away,” said Mr Samchai, a 61-year-old teacher from Maha Sarakham province. “I told her that if you step outside, you will die. Inside, we have steel as a shield.”
His wife opted for a very Thai approach and did a wai, or paid respect to, the elephant and prayed for their safety.
The elephant then repeatedly slammed its hips into the front left side of the car. Mr Samchai stepped on the brakes but did not turn off the engine. The elephant then defecated three times beside the car.
It was only after that Mr Samchai realised the elephant was in an amorous mood and thought his vehicle was a female pachyderm. It then stood with its two front feet on the bonnet of the car, used its trunk to grip a small TV satellite dish on top of the car, and then used its penis to bang on the bonnet for about one minute.
Mr Samchai said the elephant’s penis was slightly curved, and about as long as a human arm. “At that point I thought the elephant was in its mating season and it thought our car was a female elephant.”
Once the elephant stepped off the car, it made a very loud sound, and at that point Mr Samchai saw a way to escape.
“It wasn’t really that scary or aggressive,” he said. “I consider it as a good fortune, since an elephant is a large animal.”
The whole episode lasted 15 minutes. The couple then drove to safety and parked and many people crowded around to look at the damaged car.
“There were people who let me look at the pictures they took, and I asked if I could keep them,” Mr Samchai said. “I thought the one where the elephant was raising its trunk was very beautiful, although others may think it looks scary.”
Lottery ticket sellers who went to the park quickly sold out as people snapped up tickets with similar numbers to Mr Samchai’s car licence plate numbers.
But Patarapol Maneeorn, a veterinarian at the Department of National Parks, Wildlife and Conservation, said it was unlikely the elephant was trying to mate with the car.
Several factors come into play when an elephant is sexually aroused, he said, including pheromones that the body releases, the temperature, snuggling and the physiological changes during the reproductive period. “I can’t find a single reason to support the elephant being turned on by the car,” Dr Patarapol said. “Its penis was probably itching so it had to scratch it using the side window. Elephant trunks are too short to reach [the penis].”
None of this came as much comfort to Mr Samchai. His 230E Mercedes did not have any insurance, but he took it to get repaired on Friday. The estimated cost of repainting the bonnet and smoothing out the many indents was 6,000-7,000 baht.
But he does intend to frame some of the pictures of the lonely, or itchy, pachyderm.