As the population of wild elephants grows in Thailand and conflicts with people become more frequent, a tourist was killed in an elephant attack near a national park campground.
AFP and the Bangkok Post said on the 3rd (local time) that a related incident was reported at dawn the previous day in central Thailand.
According to reports, the incident occurred around 5:30 a.m. on the 2nd at a campground in Khao Yai National Park in Nakhon Ratchasima Province. At the time, a Thai tourist, a man in his 60s, was walking around the tent with his wife when a wild male elephant approached and attacked.
Based on witness accounts, the elephant lifted the victim with its trunk, threw the person to the ground, and continued the attack by trampling. Other campers at the scene reportedly did not leave their tents out of concern for the elephant's threat.
Park rangers and police later arrived and drove the elephant toward the forest, but the tourist was pronounced dead at the scene. Local Thai media reported that the elephant in question had a history of causing casualties and raised the possibility that it may be linked to an unresolved fatal incident.
The park said it would review follow-up measures such as behavioral correction or relocation to another area, noting the male elephant may have entered musth, a period when aggression increases.
Meanwhile, Asian elephants are classified as "Endangered" under the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) and are protected worldwide, but in Thailand, the growing wild elephant population has led to a sharp increase in human and property damage. In response, Thai authorities recently launched a program to manage wild elephant numbers by administering contraceptive injections to female elephants using tranquilizer darts.