Wild elephants in Nghe An province enter people's kitchens to search for food.
Kien's family was getting ready for bed when they were horrified to discover a huge wild elephant rummaging for food right in their kitchen.
On the evening of November 6th, as the family of Vi Văn Kiên (39 years old, from Tăng village, Mường Chọng commune, Nghệ An province) was preparing to rest, they suddenly heard a loud noise coming from the kitchen. Turning on the lights to check, Mr. Kiên was horrified to see a large elephant ransacking his kitchen.
“It seemed like it was craving salt, so it was searching for salt to eat; it wouldn't eat anything else. Seeing that, I immediately ran up to the stilt house and shone a flashlight, shouting, and only then did it leave. It keeps coming back repeatedly, and the family is very scared,” Mr. Kien said, adding that in recent years, wild elephants have appeared at his house almost every month. This is the only wild elephant remaining in the former Quy Hop district.
According to the elders in Tang village, this area used to be home to a large herd of wild elephants. At that time, National Highway 48C had not yet been developed, and the section passing through here was just a dirt road. Meanwhile, the surrounding area was covered with vast bamboo forests – a favorite food of elephants. Around 1990, the first people from the commune center moved here to settle. Later, many other households followed suit. As the population grew, the bamboo forests gradually thinned out. Instead, there were rice paddies, acacia forests, cassava plantations, etc. It seems that the destruction of the bamboo forests and the scarcity of food angered the elephants. They began destroying crops, and the villagers tried to drive them away many times, but without success.
In 1995, a woman, witnessing a herd of elephants grazing in her family's rice fields, which were nearing harvest, bravely ran down to chase them away. Unfortunately, she was trampled to death by the elephants. The herd then attacked another person, but that victim miraculously survived. According to the elders, it seems that fearing retaliation after the fatal attack, the elephants relinquished their familiar habitat to humans and moved to another area. They migrated together to forests in another commune to live.
For about the last five years, the people of Tang village have seen elephants reappear. However, this time there is only a single female elephant. This female elephant has a deformity in her hind foot. According to the villagers, it may be an injury from being caught in a trap. Since then, the female elephant has lived alone and frequently comes to the village to cause trouble.
Every time elephants pass through the village, the villagers' rice fields and sugarcane plantations are devastated. This is partly due to the elephants eating the crops and partly due to trampling them. To deter the elephants, many households have built barbed wire fences to protect their homes and fields, but these measures have proven ineffective. Whenever the elephants move, they simply tear through the barbed wire. In early June 2022, a wild elephant, while returning to the village, suddenly became enraged and killed two cows belonging to the villagers of Tang village. The villagers have repeatedly requested that the local authorities relocate the elephant and provide compensation for the losses. However, to date, these requests have not been fulfilled.
Ms. Nguyen Thi Thanh Nhan, Chairwoman of the People's Committee of Muong Chong commune, said that the commune had also received complaints from residents about wild elephants frequently coming to the village to cause trouble. "The commune is also requesting the Provincial People's Committee to provide compensation for damages caused by the wild elephants," Ms. Nhan said.
