Friday, August 04, 2017

Beehive fence stops attacks by hungry elephants

A farmer in Khaeng Hang Maew district of Chanthaburi province has finally found a humane way to keep the hungry jumbos away without harming them – a beehive fence.

CHANTHABURI, Kyodo News – After years of crop and house damage caused by wild elephants in Khaeng Hang Maew district of Chanthaburi province, a local farmer finally found a humane way to keep the hungry jumbos away without harming them – a beehive fence.

The idea of using beehive boxes to protect her crops and house still delights Dararat Sirimaha, a rubber tapper, who earlier achieved little success in preventing the elephants from rampaging through her farmlands.

She had to abandon large parts of her tapioca farm after it was destroyed by the elephants, eventually converting it into a rubber plantation early last year.

She also cut down her banana trees, which elephants feast on, but still remained hopeless.

Confrontation between the local residents and the elephants goes back a decade, but her patience ran out when the elephants attacked her house and injured her father one night.

"It was very scary when 10 elephants surrounded our house and roared," the 37-year-old farmer recalled.

Despite the community's efforts to scare the elephants away by setting off firecrackers, digging a canal and even building a concrete wall, nothing was able to stop the pachyderms from wiping out their crops.

On hearing about the great success of using bees to deter elephants in Africa from the village headman, Ms Dararat had no other alternative but to try the new measure.

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