The little animal was eating farmed sugar cane when he was caught red-handed. His reaction was undoubtedly sweeter than it was effective.
In Asia, and above all across South-east Asia and the Indian subcontinent, the sight of elephants roaming freely close to rural villages is one of the area’s most characteristic scenes. Due to the threat of extinction facing these animals, there are more and more measures being implemented in this part of the world that aim to safeguard them and enable their conservation and protection. This has meant that their presence in populated areas isn’t unusual and certainly isn’t a cause for hostility.
Efforts have been made to try and achieve a peaceful coexistence of elephants and humans. And although there’s still a long way to go before the experiment can be considered entirely successful, important progress has been made. This can be seen in Thailand where elephants, besides obviously being an important and protected species, are also one of the country’s tourist attractions, meaning that the reciprocal relationship benefits both parties. And this peaceful coexistence has meant that many elephants have felt confident enough to steal crops.
Such was the case of Chiang Mai, a baby elephant who was caught eating sugar cane from a local farmer’s field. When he realized that people were approaching, the little elephant thought on his feet about where he could hide and came up with a hilarious hiding place. The sweet animal decided to hide behind a lamppost close to the edge of the field, believing that he wouldn’t be found there.
This heart-melting scene was captured by Thai farmers and later uploaded to 9GAG and what’s incredible is the fact that not only did the baby elephant think that hiding behind a lamppost was a good idea, but that if he kept perfectly still no one would be able to see him. Luckily it looks like the residents of the area played along with him for a while, so that he wouldn’t feel sad about his lack of stealth.