INTRODUCTION
Elephants, friends or enemies?
In the eyes of the world, Thailand is famous for many things—temples, beautiful beaches, spicy food, floating markets, colourful hill tribes…and elephants! In ancient times elephants carried Thai kings to war. More recently, they could be found hard at work in the jungles pulling heavy logs. Today, they are found throughout the country delighting tourists.
Indeed, elephants have long played an important and respected role in Thai culture. That is a reason why a story such as this one is so disturbing. Unfortunately, we seem to be seeing more and more such stories in our Bangkok Post. What is happening to increasingly turn one of our best animal friends into a dangerous killer?
Before we try to answer that question, let’s take a closer look at the story itself. In many ways, it is typical of stories where elephants kill people. An elephant suddenly becomes angry and loses control of itself. It steps on someone—often its handler—and uses its trunk to throw the person into the air and then kicks the person on the ground. The elephant then stands over the person it has killed, not allowing anyone to take the body away. Sometimes the elephant is killed by the local people who are understandably angry and afraid. But police try to prevent this if possible, preferring to shoot the animal with drugs to make it fall unconscious (go to sleep).
Of course, news writers do not use exactly the same words as I used to tell the story. Let’s look through the story and find the vocabulary they often use.
- What do you call an elephant that has gone out of control?:
a ______ elephant
- What is another word for “stepped on”?
- What is a word for an elephant’s handler?
- How did the writer say “went out of control”?
- What word was used for “throwing” (the body into the air)?
- How did the writer say that the elephant stood over the body?
THE FIRST STORY FOR YOU TO READ
Elephant kills eighth handler
![[Tourists with an elephant]](eletour.gif)
Yala
A ROGUE elephant stomped his eighth mahout to death in Bang Sata district of this southern province.
Rohame Saenbat, 41, was killed by his 18-year-old bull elephant on Thursday night at Chalongchai village of tambon Khuen Bang Lang.
The jumbo apparently became angry when the mahout pulled its tail as a signal to get the elephant to kneel to allow him to get on.
But the elephant went berserk stepping on the mahout with its foreleg and then hurling the body into the air with his trunk before kicking it. Mr Rohame was the eighth mahout to be killed by the elephant.
Thirty armed villagers ran to the scene but they could not get to the body which the elephant stood astride.
Local police convinced the angry villagers not to shoot the beast and a livestock official was called in to fire anaesthetic shots.
The body was taken from the scene six hours after the incident and the jumbo was chained and taken into the jungle. |
FOLLOW-UP
Two weeks later
Just two weeks later, there was another story that was remarkably similar—only this time it occurred in the North. With the background you gained from the first story, you should have no difficulty at all reading and understanding it. Notice that you can add two new words to your vocabulary list. First, find another way of saying “stepped on”. And then find out what we call an “animal doctor” in English.
Dart gun team moves in after rogue elephants kill villagers
Hot weather blamed for attack in forest
Subin Kheunkaew
Lampang
![[Tourists with an elephant]](eledest.gif)
TWO rogue elephants trampled to death two villagers who were gathering wild plants and foodstuffs in a forest in the Chae Hom district, it was revealed yesterday.
Police said other villagers tried in vain to retrieve the bodies of the dead villagers but the elephants stayed close to them. Police and villagers later retrieved one of the two bodies.
A high-ranking police officer from Bangkok accompanied by a veterinarian and a marksman was flown by helicopter to the scene of the incident to contain the elephants and to prevent villagers from killing them. The Bangkok team will attempt to shoot the elephants with an anaesthetic dart gun.
Police believed the animals were domestic elephants left to roam the forest by their owners because they were out of work. Police cannot yet identify the owners.
“The owners probably would not come forward to claim the beasts, fearing they would be held responsible for the deaths,” a policeman said. |
What’s wrong?
Actually, the story above—the second story—is not finished. The writer knows that many people reading the story will want more information. They will want some idea of what is causing the elephants’ strange behaviour and that is the main subject of the second part of the story. The information in this section comes from several sources. As you read…
- find who these sources are
- make a list of all the different reasons they give which might explain the elephants’ violent behaviour
- find out what additional information these sources provide about the elephant situation in Thailand
Finally, what ideas do you have about what should be done about this sad situation?
THE SECOND STORY FOR YOU TO READ
(Continued from previous section.)
| Rogue elephants have been in the news recently for killing villagers, including their handlers, and damaging crops.
So far seven people in the northern region have died from elephant attacks during the past two months, four in this province (Lampang) and three in Phrae.
A veterinarian has warned that hot weather could affect the behaviour of elephants.
Sithidet Mahasawangkul of the Forest Industry Organisation (FIO) at Lampang told the Bangkok Post that mistreatment of the elephants by their handlers or owners often caused a great deal of stress to the animals, driving them to misbehave.
Several factors contributed to the mistreatment of elephants, he said. Following the nationwide logging ban announced in 1989, most domesticated elephants and their owners have been put out of work. Ownership of many of them has changed hands as a result.
Some of the elephants have been separated from their mates during the mating season. Many others had been forced to work beyond their physical endurance. Some handlers have fed their animals drugs, such as Ya Ba, to keep them working.
All of these have led to increasing incidents of elephants going berserk and hurting or killing people, said the vet.
Mr Sithidet suggested that during the hot season when elephants easily become irritated and dangerous, they should be kept near cool places or their natural habitats such as shady forests or ponds to allow them to rest comfortably.
It is believed that about 4,000 elephants, half wild and half domesticated, remain in Thailand.
According to Mr Sithidet, about 500 elephants in Phrae, Lampang and Chiang Mai are out of work, but many of them have been employed in illegal logging operations.
The FIO have been assigned to take care of elephants confiscated in illegal logging operations, he said. About 18 of them are now being cared for at an elephant rehabilitation centre in Lampang at a cost of 3.8 million baht last year.
A provincial forestry official in Phrae said about 70 domesticated elephants have been registered with the provincial authorities.
Manoo Somjit said some 200 elephants have not been registered. He added that the authorities are carrying out a survey of the elephant population as part of a plan to find legal jobs for them.
Many elephants have been put to work in the tourism industry by giving rides to tourists. But Mr Manoo said not all elephants are fit for the job.
“Elephants servicing tourists have been well trained. But elephants which were employed to haul logs may not be used to carrying people and no one can guarantee they will not misbehave and cause harm to tourists,” said an official at the elephant rehabilitation centre. |
Teacher’s note
This week’s lesson illustrates two important reasons why English teachers around the world use the newspaper as a source of material for their classrooms. First, while the stories in the newspaper are new every day, the topics are not. We expect our newspaper to cover subjects such as politics, crime, sports, the environment and business virtually every day. All such topics have their own special characteristics and once they are understood, students can read individual stories within these subject areas with ease.
Good teachers can speed up this process by focusing on stories within the same subject area and helping students discover the common elements. You will notice that we have done just that in the two stories chosen for this lesson. Your students should see very clearly that much of the vocabulary they learned in the first story, for example, can be immediately put to use to understand the second.
A second reason newspapers are such a rich source of learning material is the subjects they cover are worth reading about—not just for language development, but for intellectual development as well. This week’s topic, for example, deals with an increasingly common problem in Thailand that has resulted from economic and environmental changes—a topic we think will be of considerable interest to your students.
•This lesson was prepared by Acharn Terry Fredrickson, BA Stanford, MA (TESL) University of Minnesota, Manager of the Educational Services Department at the Bangkok Post and general editor of this programme.
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Know these words and phrases
domestic / domesticated
Domestic refers to the home. A domestic animal, for example is an animal that lives with people in or around their homes—like a dog or a cat. Some animals that are normally wild—elephants, for example—have also been trained to live with humans. We then say they have been domesticated.
mate
an animal’s breeding partner
endurance
the ability to experience and bear something painful or unpleasant for a long time
irritated
angry or annoyed
confiscate
to take something away from someone who has done something wrong, like breaking the law
rehabilitation centre
a place where (in this case) elephants are cared for and retrained before they are returned to the wild |
Winner
of PANPA Award for Excellence
