Thailand Highway 3259
is a sugarcane transport road.
Thousands of farmers
use it to get their crops to the refinery.
But this highway
has a toll collector.
Locals call him the Don.
And this is his territory.
He’s a master dealmaker,
calculating risk versus reward
to get what he’s due.
The Don can actually sniff out
when a delivery truck is on the way.
He can gauge quantity
using his sense of smell alone.
Targeting the trucks
carrying the biggest loads.
Time to collect
his toll.
170 pounds of raw sugarcane
provides the 70,000 calories
he needs every day.
But the Don
is not on his own.
He’s brought some younger bulls along.
Henchmen
to show them how it’s done.
They watch the Don’s technique,
he knows that if they aren’t too greedy,
the drivers will pay his toll.
And in return,
he and his accomplices will stay out of their sugar cane
fields.
Their observation and knowledge of us has helped elephants
to get by in an ever more human dominated
landscape.
But their long term future
may depend on us understanding them
as individuals.
