PRACHUAP KHIRI KHAN, THAILAND – Fruit vendors carrying cargo along a rural road in Thailand’s Hua Hin district encountered some tough customers last month, when eager elephants blocked the roadway to sample the some of their wares.
According to the Bangkok Post, elephants in this area are want to stop fruit trucks—targeting heavy vehicles with cages holding fruit and nibbling on their contents. In fact, local pineapple traders Suwan Kaeopoltrang and Suthida Jitjampee reportedly encountered hungry elephants twice in three days while en route, back and forth, to the neighboring Kui Buri district.
Suwan told the news source that the latest incident involved an elephant emerging from the roadside, leaning on his truck’s driver-side, and knocking off a side-view mirror as it munched away at the truck’s cargo.
In a previous incident, a single-tusked elephant stopped Suwan’s whole family for 45 minutes on a precipitous hillside while it gorged on more than 200 pounds of the sweet stuff—spooning pineapples out of the truck’s cab with its trunk and devouring them skin and all. The fruit vendor struggled to keep his family, the truck, and its nearly nine tons of cargo on the steep roadway by revving its engine and applying air brakes, and the engine sound reportedly irritated the hangry elephant, who reacted by roaring at the trapped trader’s family.
Will these baggy fruit thieves continue to poach pineapple in the Thai countryside? AndNowUKnow will continue to report on all things produce.
