Khao Yai National Park · Notice to Visitors

Khao Yai, Thailand’s first national park, in 1962. Today it is part of a World Heritage forest complex and home to around three hundred wild elephants.

Elephants often walk along the park’s roads, especially in the early morning and evening. If you meet an elephant on the road, stop your vehicle at least thirty metres away and keep the engine running you can leave quickly if necessary. Do not get out of your vehicle, use your horn or flash photography.

Never feed wild animals. Animals that are fed by visitors may lose their fear of people and aggressive. Feeding monkeys a fine of up to 10,000 baht.

The speed limit inside the park is 60 kilometres per hour. Many animals, including deer and porcupines, are killed vehicles every year.

Please take all rubbish with you when you leave. Plastic bags by animals can kill them. Thank you for helping us protect Khao Yai.

Bees vs. Elephants: A Peaceful Solution? · by Nam Thongkham, Grade 11

The problem. Every dry season, wild elephants leave Khao Yai and enter farms food. Farmers lose crops, and sometimes both people and elephants are hurt. My family has lost up to our cassava in a single night.

The idea. Elephants avoid bees, stings around the eyes and trunk are very painful. A bee fence is a line of beehives connected by wire. When an elephant touches the wire, the hives shake and the bees fly out. The idea was first tested in Kenya and has been tried in several Asian countries.

Our trial. With help from Dr. Arun, my family set up a bee fence around two fields. Over one season, elephants approached the fence fourteen times but entered twice. On nearby farms without fences, elephants entered almost every time.

Limitations. Bees are active in heavy rain, and the hives need regular care. A single farm’s results cannot prove that the method works everywhere.

Benefits beyond protection. We also harvested twelve kilograms of honey, we sold at the local market. My father, who was doubtful at first, now says the bees have “paid for themselves”.

Conclusion. Bee fences will not solve every problem, but they show that protecting farms and protecting elephants do not have to be .

Wild Elephant Emergency Card · For Residents Near Khao Yai

If an elephant is near your home: Stay indoors. Turn off bright lights. Keep children and pets inside. Do not throw objects, shout or set off fireworks; this can make elephants aggressive.

If you meet an elephant outside: Move away slowly and quietly. Do not run directly away in a straight line on open ground. Try to put a large object, such as a tree or vehicle, between you and the elephant.

Report elephant activity: Call the Elephant Watch hotline at 1362 or send a message through the village group chat. Rangers will respond as quickly as possible.

Crop damage: Take photographs of the damage before cleaning up. Report it to the park office within seven days to apply for compensation.

When Success Creates New Problems

For much of the twentieth century, Thailand’s wild elephants were in serious decline. Forests were cleared for farming, and elephants were hunted for ivory or captured for work. Protecting the remaining forests became an urgent national goal.

In places like Khao Yai, that goal has largely been achieved. Hunting has been greatly reduced, and wild elephant numbers in several protected areas have grown steadily. Conservationists rightly celebrate this success.

But success has created a new challenge. The forests have fixed boundaries, while the elephant population keeps growing. Many forest edges are now surrounded by farms growing sugarcane, cassava and corn, crops that are rich in energy and easy to reach. For a hungry elephant in the dry season, a field of sugarcane is far more attractive than a forest with little to eat.

The result is what experts call human-elephant conflict. Farmers lose income, and every year some people are injured or killed. Elephants, too, are harmed by electric fences, poison and traffic.

Experts agree that there is no single solution. Bee fences, early warning systems, changes in the crops grown near the forest and compensation for farmers all play a role. Above all, solutions must be designed with local communities rather than imposed on them. People who live beside the forest are the ones who will decide, in the end, whether elephants are seen as neighbours or enemies.

My Grandfather’s Neighbours · by Nam Thongkham

My grandfather was born in a village that no longer exists. In the 1950s, it was surrounded by forest, and he often told me that elephants walked past his house at night like slow, grey shadows. “They were our neighbours,” he said. “We left them alone, and they left us alone.”

By the time my father was born, the forest around the village had been cleared for farms, and the elephants had become rare. When I was a child, I had only ever seen them in pictures.

Now they are back. At first, I felt only excitement. Then I watched my father stand in our ruined cassava field at sunrise, too tired even to be angry. I understood that, for him, the elephants were not a symbol of nature’s recovery. They were a threat to everything our family had worked for.

The bee fences have not solved everything, but they have changed something important. My father no longer talks about elephants as enemies. Last month, when a young elephant stopped at the edge of our field and then turned back towards the forest, he laughed and said, “Good boy. You remembered the bees.”

I think my grandfather would have liked that. Living with elephants is not easy, but perhaps it is possible to be neighbours again.