TERF Information
From Hunter to Conservationist
Let me take you back in time to about forty years ago when huge swathes of forest stretched across the north eastern and south eastern provinces. These forests were a major source of income for the nation and for local communities. They produced valuable timber for buildings, furniture, fittings, boats for Thailand and for export. For the villagers who lived in these forests, the forests provided almost everything a family needed. Trees and other plants provided homes, furniture, fruits, food, medicines and firewood. The families cleared patches of forest to grow rain-fed rice and caught fish and animals to provide meat.
In those days, most of Thailand’s forests were managed by the Royal Forest Department as productive timber forests. The concept of conservation was very young in Thailand and only a few areas such as Khao Yai and Phu Kradung were protected by the laws of the time as national parks.
The Khaokum family lived in a small village, on the edge of the forests of Nadi Subdistrict in Prachinburi Province. The whole family lived together – grandparents, uncles, aunts, parents, children, nephews, nieces. Sometimes the young men went away for days on end to log trees for the Forest Department and it was left to the young boys and old men to provide for the family. Somboon was the eldest boy in the family and he started helping to provide for the rest of the family from a young age. Before the rains, he would join in in clearing a patch of forest and burning the slashed down trees to create a temporary rice field. He would help to sow and then later reap the rice. When there was no work in the rice fields, he would go into the forest with his grandparents and elders to hunt wildlife and collect edible plants.
Somboon was a bright young lad, eager to learn about the forests. He listened carefully to the stories his elders told around the evening cooking fires about the ways of wild animals, about different plants and their uses as foods and medicines, about how to track and hunt, how to look for sign. When out in the forest, he would observe his elders closely, learning directly from them as well as from the forest itself. He learnt how to distinguish between different species of trees, lianas and herbaceous plants, remembering which were medicines, which could be eaten and which should be avoided at all cost. He observed the animals to learn their ways, their sounds, their signs, and how best to hunt and catch them. He learnt the best places to set traps, how to approach an animal so quietly he could kill it with his homemade gun.
“At first I only killed to provide food for my family. But then I realized that I could make money by selling meat and skins. I wanted to do this to provide a better way of life for my family”, the old hunter recollected.
He made a few contacts with the middle men in his village – the men who knew about where to sell wild meat and hides, the men who understood about markets. His skill as a hunter soon became renowned and he would receive orders for wild pig and deer meat to be sent to the markets on a daily basis. Somboon could not meet the demand alone and set up a team of ten men to assist in hunt and transporting the meat to the market – animals killed one day needed to be in the markets the next morning, otherwise the meat would start to rot in the heat and humidity.
Usually, the hunter would split the earnings evenly amongst his team as he felt they had all shared in the hard work. Sometimes on special days like New Year, his market contacts would give Somboon a bonus to keep him interested and to ensure his loyalty to them.
Somboon’s fame as a hunter started to spread and he became known as Planboon, Plan being the title for a hunter. He was in his early twenties when a middleman he worked for asked if he could kill elephant. The middleman would provide the rifle and ammunition and would find the markets. Planboon just needed to provide the tusks and meat.
Planboon knew that he was well capable of tracking and killing elephant, but had never thought to do so until then, as he had not realized there was a market for ivory and elephant meat. The money being offered was quite considerable – at least 80,000Baht for just the tusks and then more for meat. In the late 1970’s this was a considerable amount of money for anyone and almost unheard of for an uneducated villager!
Planboon took up the challenge and was soon out in the forest on the trail of elephants. His
team of ten would split into two groups, one to wait until a kill had been reported when they would go in and help bring out the meat and trophies. Planboon would go deep into the forest with two or three of his most experienced assistants, quietly tracking the elephants. Often they would have no luck – they couldn’t get in close enough without the elephants seeing or hearing them or there were no tuskers in the group. But sometimes they would be in luck. In the wet season, finding tracks where the front footprints were larger than the hind was a sure sign of a bull. In the dry season, they looked for a single set of elephant tracks. In these cases, Planboon would leave his companions and follow the trail of the tusker alone.
Planboon would need all his skill as a tracker to get as close as possible to the bull as he would only have one shot to kill the great animal. If he did not kill it in that shot, the wounded creature would flee the spot to die a slow and painful death days, weeks or even months later. This was not something Planboon could tolerate. If he killed, it was to be a clean kill or else he would leave the bull and return another day.
The only shot that will kill an elephant outright using the type of gun that Planboon had at the time was a direct headshot into the brain. For him to be certain of killing he needed to be within 5 to 10 metres of the elephant, with a clear view of the head and without the elephant being aware of or afraid of his presence.
Planboon would creep quietly through the forest to where the bull was feeding, frequently lifting a leaf to test then wind, ensuring he was always downwind so that he would not frighten the creature with his smell. The hunter stopped frequently to check signs the bull had left – which plants he’d been eating, signs from his tracks – where he rested for a while, where he scuffed soil to throw over his back or under his belly, where he sharpened his tusks against a tree or dug them into a soil bank to loosen the soil so the bull could eat the mineral rich dirt, and looking for signs of musth – trees knocked down or pushed over andrub marks of tusks and head against a tree – in these cases he went on with extreme care. If a bull in musth smelt him, the bull would charge towards him rather than run away!
Slowly he got closer, inching into position so not to frighten his quarry. Carefully he’d lift the gun to his shoulder and take aim, if all was fine and the shot was clear, he’d squeeze the trigger.
The elephant lifted its trunk, emitting an ear piercing squeal, before dropping like a stone in its tracks.
Once the elephant was dead, the rest of the team would come in and assist Planboon in the gruesome task of removing the tusks and any other parts that would fetch a good price. To get at the tusks, the hunters would first have to cut off the trunk and then cut the bone around the part of the tusk embedded into the skull of the once proud elephant. The whole process would take between two to three hours before eventually they could remove both tusks and be on their way.
Over the years Planboon hunted elephant in forests throughout the eastern and southeastern part of Thailand, often in areas which were designated as national parks or wildlife sanctuaries, or have been since – Khao Yai, Tap Lan, Pangsida, Dong Yai, Ang Kruaynai! However, he did not really like to hunt elephants in Ang Kruaynai as the quality of the ivory was of inferior quality and would not bring in as much revenue for his teams hard work.
By the late 1980’s Planboon realized that his way of life could not continue for much longer.
“It was getting harder to find tuskers andas more people became interested in conservation, it was harder to sell the ivory and elephant meat,” he said. “Also, some of my team had been caught a number of times by rangers when hunting in protected areas. I’d bail them out of jail as quick as I could, but it was getting dangerous. I was also concerned about what would happen to my family, or the families of the men who relied on me, if I, or they, were injured or killed in a confrontation with rangers. I decided to stop hunting.”
Planboon tried out a few different jobs, but really found his calling when he was introduced by a friend to Wildlife Fund Thailand (WFT). He joined the Fund and was soon putting his wealth of experience to use again, this time in the name of conservation. Planboon joined the wildlife survey team in the Western Forest Complex, using his in-depth knowledge of wildlife sounds, tracks and signs to help WFT to discover about the huge range of animals that live deep in these forests. The ex-hunter’s knowledge of plants was also invaluable in creating lists of species and in studying the use of plants in herbal medicines – exchanging and sharing knowledge with the local people and Karen villagers.
“I also tracked elephants for WFT in many protected areas – Thungyai Naraesuan, Kuiburi, Salak Pra, and Kaengrachan. I could now share my experience with others, teaching them how to read elephant sign – the tracks, the dung, the scrapes or digging in dusty soil where an elephant has had a dust bath, the digging in mineral licks, the bending of vegetation where the elephants have rested, the mud-marks on trees which elephants have scratched and rubbed against. I taught them how to observe elephants and understand their moods and actions from their calls and behaviour. There is the long groaning call a mother makes when separated from her child; if the elephants ears are gently flapping and its trunk is swaying then it is in a good mood and it is safe to go close, but if the elephant stares at you and maintains eye contact, his ears still and his trunk folded, then beware – that elephant is planning to attack!” the ex-hunter grinned as he said this, his arm mimicking the movement of the elephant’s trunk.
At Kuiburi National Park, Planboon worked with WFT to follow the elephants helping to show how they had changed their movement patterns due to conflict in the forests over the border in Burma and were now spending more time in Kuiburi. This was one factor that led to the elephants starting to raid the pineapple fields that virtually surrounded the Thai side of the forest park. Planboon and WFT worked closely with the villagers to try and find ways to repel the elephants and prevent them from destroying the pineapple crops and people’s livelihoods.
Planboon is happy now to be using his knowledge and skill in the protection of elephants. He is an excellent story teller and frequently inspires a conservation ethic in groups of all ages as they listen intently to his slightly high, whispering voice tell wonderful tales about elephants, forests and the value of conservation. He now works for the Wild Elephant Research and Rescue Fund (WERF), based in Pak Chong near Khao Yai National Park.
“It is hard sometimes working with a small organization – sometimes we have little money to do our job, sometimes others do not agree with what we do.” Planboon grinned, wrinkles creasing his eyes which laughed despite the seriousness of his words. “But still we try to do our best to keep working with communities who suffer elephant raids, with children who are the future of Thailand and in the forest following the elephants. We keep working because we believe that what we do benefits wild elephants and conservation.”
Looking back on his early life, he is very pragmatic. He needed to support his family and at the time killing wildlife was the only skill he knew, at the time it was not seen as a crime.
“I have spent the last fifteen or so years following elephants to protect them,” the hunter continued. “For some people, sometimes killing wildlife is inevitable – farmers whose crops are continually damaged by wild pig or ground squirrels. For these animals, that breed quickly, it is not such a problem. But for large animals, that breed slowly, like elephants, people shouldn’t kill them. They don’t reproduce fast enough.”
Planboon has definite views on the management of Thailand’s protected areas:
“Thailand’s forests belong to all Thai people and I think it is important for everyone, particularly the communities on the edges of national parks, to be involved in their protection. I am proof that an ex-hunter can make a great conservationist. There are many others, living near to protected areas who also have excellent knowledge of the forest and wildlife. Protected area staff can work with these people and use their knowledge and experience for the benefit of conservation. They can involve the communities in the management of the forests so that the communities benefit from a healthy forest full of wildlife.”
When asked if elephant hunting still occurs, Planboon shrugged his shoulders and replied
“Conservation is now very strong, it is hard to sell tusks now, so why should a villager risk his life to kill elephant? But, if someone knows how and where to sell tusks, then he has the money to pay someone to kill elephant. That might happen in some places.”