Elephants and motorbikes

In case anyone missed Andy Merk's incredible video (I did as I was in Europe) of the motorbike rider and the elephants - here are the links:

Andy's incredible Video on YouTube ....


Andy's write up of events - www.khaoyainews.com/wild-elephant-herd-attacks-motorbike/
Andy's Facebook page - www.facebook.com/andy.merk1

Andy raises some very valid issues re Khao Yai and motorbikes as well as other forms of transport in the park on his Facebook page.

Just saw on ThaiPBS that they are reinforcing the 95 db limit for motorbikes in Khao Yai.

Amazing video indeed. And one hell of a lucky biker! Praying does help!
And I think I am actually not really joking. It's simply his gestures/ the way he stands which probably did not feel threatening to the elephants, so they spared him. Not sure if the engine of the scooter was still running when he dropped it. This probably also drew more attention from the elephants to his bike than to him.
But this could have gone worse. I have been in his shoes. Cornered, only in my case it was just one male elephant. Apart from an early trumpet when it started his charge, he was not as vocal like the herds sometimes are.

This Sunday I happened to drive by when the elephants were out, I guess that must have been shortly after the incident, but I am not completely sure, could have been just before?
Was doing some herping with a friend, just finished our photoshoot of some Large-eyed Pit Vipers along the trail to Haew Narok, and then on the way back the ranger car blocked us while they were using their alarm lights and sound to chase the elephants into the jungle, off the road. Common practice since a couple years when they first got those pick up trucks with alarm lights.
I am not a great fan of this practice, and sometimes even wonder if the increase of elephant 'violence' is a direct consequence of this, but well, that's just speculating. It surely will not add to the elephants feeling safe near cars.
But in this case the motorbikes were the problem. And there sure were a lot of them that Sunday! The speed and noise with which they raced passed our car was absolutely crazy. I know I am very annoying on the road. All those visitors must have thought, what is this crazy guy doing? Driving so slow... I was one of the few cars that was driving less than 40km/ hr that day, haha. Not pleasant to look for vine snakes in the roadside bushes while a constant row of 10 cars and bikes pushes you from behind. But anyway, we succeeded with spotting an orange morph vine snake.
The bikes were going the 'Thai' way through the curves where you have no idea what's coming from the other side... It always surprises me how lucky they always are that the traffic form the other side is not driving as crazy as they are... Not obeying the speedlimit is one thing, but cutting the curves is something I just can not understand.

Anyway, about motorbikes and elephants.
I have witnessed in the past how different elephants react to motorbikes compared to cars. I have notcied this many times, but in one particular case it couldn't have been more clear. A herd of elephants was happily feeding on one of the saltlicks along that same road to Haew Narok. As usual it was very busy that day, and as if the elephants know that people would like to see them, they always choose to appear on these busy weekend days. They were not on the road, so not blocking the traffic that day, so cars were constantly driving by. We parked nearby and watched them for a while. After some time a small group of 'big bikes' drove by, and suddenly the elephants' mood totally changed. You could see the fear. Restless moving around, the calfs hiding close to their mothers. And when the bikes took off and the sound faded away, the elephants became calm again and continued eating the soil. Lots of cars were still driving by, but the elephants did not seem to care.

It's a shame for the motorbikers that don't use full gass in low gear, or even modified exhausts, and keep to the speedlimit, but a ban would be probably be the only option. Yes they say they will enforce the 95 db rule. But how would they want to check? As soon as you go full speed in low gear from 0 to 100+ the sound will far exceed this. They can not check that at the park entrance on a busy Sunday.
Better still would be to make so many speed bumps that it becomes a pain to drive for the bikers (and cars alike). Then they will choose different routes.
I would like to see a lot of road blocks, reducing the road to 1 lane. The current speed bumps can be taken at quite some speed. Just put some big concrete blocks in the middle of the road for which people really need to slow down or stop to let cars from the other side go first.
It will be a pain to drive, but it's probably the only thing that works. If you do it every few hundred metres...
Or just remove the tarmac, and go back to a dirt road full of potholes. But I don't think the authorities will think that's a real option ;-) .
I fear for the worst now they have re-surfaced the road in Kaeng Krachan. That will be fun the coming months...
Waiting for the first leopard roadkill by the speeidng cars that enter at 5:30AM to race to Panoen Thung...

onflipflops wrote:

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Better still would be to make so many speed bumps that it becomes a pain to drive for the bikers (and cars alike). Then they will choose different routes.
I would like to see a lot of road blocks, reducing the road to 1 lane. The current speed bumps can be taken at quite some speed. Just put some big concrete blocks in the middle of the road for which people really need to slow down or stop to let cars from the other side go first.
It will be a pain to drive, but it's probably the only thing that works. If you do it every few hundred metres...
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Great idea! And easy to achieve, flip-flops.

And good point about the cars - the generally poor driving standards, that have earned Thailand the title of second most dangerous country to drive in, are not left at the gate.

The management of the parks aside - it makes my blood boil that these people don't respect the notion of a national park and what it is intended for.