Overview

• A bull elephant named Plai Biang Lek squeezed through the entrance of a Pak Chong grocery store and devoured sweet rice crackers, dried bananas and a sandwich.
• After about 10 minutes, national park workers gently guided the mud-caked elephant back towards Khao Yai National Park without any injuries or major damage.
• A wildlife protection group later paid the elephant’s 800 baht snack tab, equivalent to roughly $25.
• Footage of the uninvited shopper has amassed over 1.7 million views and more than 110,000 likes on social media.
• Thailand’s estimated 4,000 wild elephants are increasingly entering farms and settlements as habitat loss drives them closer to human communities.