Wildlife Photo Competition 2 2013 : Entry Number 218

This is great and brings a smile, the black and white adding to the fun. I suppose this is in India and hope you got away! It looks like a wild elephant coming for food from a car. They have been known to stop passing cars and demand food as they threaten to bash in the bodywork! It is a lovely light hearted photo of one of our favourite animals and it shows us how certain species have adapted to human presence and even use this intelligently to their advantage.

The photo was shot in in Kaeng Krachan national park in Central Thailand. The elephant seemed to be living in the wild and was a bit shy. He came pretty close to me, maybe 30 meters or so, then stopped, waited a bit, sometimes trying to step a bit closer then back again, until finally disappearing in the jungle. For some stupid reason I was not afraid, though my car was further away from me than the elephant was. And you are right about the food, I drove by the same spot at the same time three weeks later and met him again, this time getting some bananas from a car with locals. So he has some routine and seems to be used to people a bit. And maybe he was used to approaching a car, but not a stand-alone person. Camera was a Canon 30D, lens a 70-200/2.8 IS. Photo was post-processed in Lightroom and Silver Efex Pro.