Sugar-mad elephants go on rampage destroying farmers’ fields to feed sweet tooth

A wild herd of sugar-mad elephants have become so addicted to the sweet stuff that they have left the safety of the forest and are taking over a farmer's sugarcane crops.

The odd event has occurred in the Loei province of north east Thailand, and it has left local farmers raging.

According to local media outlet The Thaiger, around 50 giant beasts have destroyed around £5ks worth of crops after they left a nearby wildlife sanctuary to eat the sugarcane.

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Despite attempts to make them retreat, the elephants have become so addicted to the sugar that they are showing no signs of returning to the Phy Luang Wildlife Sanctuary, although a team of experts has been assembled to start helping rather than it being left to the locals.

Phra Kradueng District Chief Phuriwat Chotinparat said:“ As for the affected villagers, we try to understand that the elephants are addicted to the taste of food – especially bananas and sugarcane.

“Normally, elephants do not live in deciduous dipterocarp forests like this.

“This is the first time ever that wild elephants have ever come to live in the Phu Kho Phu Kratae forest.

“Between 4-6pm every day, the elephants come out to find food – they don’t eat until it’s gone, but graze and move along, causing damage to a large area.”

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Farmers have been told to save any crops they can as the elephants are now “addicted” to the sugarcane, and the chief added that a “sugarcane-free zone” might have to be something the poor workers set up in the future.

Plans are being drawn up to find a way of having the elephants and farmers life together somehow, otherwise the entire local farming industry faces destruction.

The Phy Luang Wildlife Sanctuary, the former home of the herd, is one of the largest sanctuaries in the country and was formed in 1974.

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