Watch: Elephant Crashes Into Kitchen In Search Of Food

NEW YORK (VINnews) — A hungry elephant foraging for food crashed into a kitchen in Thailand in a vain search for food. The elephant can be seen in this clip vainly rolling its trunk around some of the kitchenware while it is looking for food. The frightened mother of the house took a clip of the elephant’s search, which left a gaping hole in their kitchen wall.

Ratchadawan Puengprasoppon was awoken in the early hours of Saturday morning by crashing and banging. When she went to find out what had happened, she discovered an elephant’s head poking through her kitchen wall beside the drying rack.

The male elephant, named Boonchuay, appeared to be looking for something to eat. His trunk rummaged through the kitchen drawers, knocking pans and cooking paraphernalia to the floor. He chewed on a plastic bag as Ratchadawan, unsure what to do, filmed the episode on her phone.

It’s not the first time Boonchuay, who lives in Thailand’s Kaeng Krachan national park, has visited Chalermkiatpattana village. “They come to visit quite often. They always come when there is the local market because they can smell food,” said Itthipon Thaimonkol, the park’s superintendent.

“These incidences are increasing in Asia, and it is likely due to a decrease in available resources and an increase in human disturbances in the elephants’ habitat,” Joshua Plotnik, a professor of psychology who studies the local elephant population, told The Guardian.  Methods such as physical barriers or moving elephants would only have a short-term impact, he added.

“If you don’t fulfil the elephants’ need for food, water and other resources in their natural habitat (or ensure they have them somewhere else), they will find ways around deterrents and access villages or cropfields in search of these resources.”