Welcome to the Jungle
The jungle is full of risks. Tourists, who are planning a trek through the tropical forests, have to count on meeting a poisonous snake on their path. They could also run into a hungry tiger or perhaps be chased by a raging elephant. However, the real danger comes from a far more unexpected corner.
Three Americans, a couple and a friend, make a journey through Thailand. They spend the night in a small bamboo hut in the jungle. In the middle of the night they wake up from tremendous crashing and thunder. A raging elephant stampedes straight through their hut and crashes the man of the couple, while the woman terrified by fear watches. The friend flees the hut and is immediately chased by the elephant. The elephant gets him briefly with its trunk, but the man manages to climb into a tree. Trembling he stays there until a couple of inhabitants of a nearby village find him the following day.
The elephant belonged to rich Chinese and was in musth, an irritable condition of which bulls suffer a few days every year. The owner released the elephant to cool its aggression in the forest. Every year furious elephants kill a few people in Thailand. A female with a calf can be as dangerous as a bull in musth. It is a good idea, when an angry elephant chases you, to find a strong tree. One which an elephant can't break or uproot. When no trees are near, you can run up a steep hill. Elephants have trouble doing the same thing. Professor Warren Brockelman studies wild gibbons for years already. He also had to run for his life because of a fuming elephant. Elephants are I believe the most dangerous big game in the jungle. However, it won't stop me from sleeping, In the forest you rarely meet big animals, and most of them avoid people anyway.
Like on television
Jungle comes from the Sanskrit word jangula, which means in-penetrable vegetation. But the forest is not that in penetrable. The tree crowns are so dense that only 1 to 2 percent of light falls through to the forest floor. That is too little for in-penetrable soil vegetation. There is no need to hack your way through with a bush knife. Often natural trails where forest wildlife make use of, so easy walking. Thick vegetation you may find along riverbanks and near fallen trees. Within the huge amount of green only few big animals live. On one-hectare forest at the most 2 wild cattle can sustain; because of much which grows here is not eatable. In comparison: the juicy grass of a savannah can feed at least 15 wild cattle per hectare.
Except for the low number of animals, they are also difficult to spot. They either live high up in the trees or are only active during the night. But even if you would almost stand next to an elephant, you might miss it. Philip Watkins, an English snake-expert, one time stood so close to an elephant he could even smell it, but due to the stress he couldn't see the animal.
Tourists have a television version of the jungle, says Dwaila Armstrong, who guides tourists through the forests for almost 15 years. They think they will see wild animals every minute. The American more than once met tigers, elephants, bears, king cobras and leopards but she has never been attacked. Once one of her customers was bitten by a king cobra. This poisonous snake was about 5 meters of length, and its bite deadly if not treated in the hospital within 24 hours with anti poison injections. Still the chances of getting bitten by a deadly snake during a safari must be seen within perspective
Guide Stanley Aiklone Kham Mwe calls the king cobra the most dangerous animal of the jungle. Stanley leads tourists through the jungle along the Thai-Burmese border and says that he meets a few every month. And you only see them at the very last minute, so you have to be careful all the time. King cobras have the habit to lie in caves and on ridges and suddenly drop themselves. Not funny to get one in the neck.
Until now Stanley has been trekking in the jungle with about 5,000 tourists and only once someone got bitten by a snake. It was a poisonous green adder, but fortunately the victim reached the hospital on time.
Stanley: One time during an evening while playing on my mouth harmonica I experienced suddenly something cold and slimy moving on my shoulder. From the corner my eyes I saw a yellow-black striped krait, one of the most poisonous snakes. With the shoulder movement of a bullet thrower I threw it of. Since then I don't play the mouth harmonica.
Beware: Trees
Tigers don't bother Stanley. In the 15 years he does this work, he only met 6. Every time the tiger walked from him away. That is a normal thing for tigers when you just stand there. Once in a while an old or wounded animal becomes a man-eater. Only in the Ganges delta tigers consequently go hunting for people. Yearly they devour many honey gatherers and fishermen. Sometimes they swim after boats hunting human prey (KIJK, January 1996).
Normally bears are more dangerous than the big cats. Especially the Malayan sun-bear and the Lip-bear have a bad reputation. Stanley Aiklone: They can become very aggressive especially when you are alone. In September, during the corn harvest, they regularly come near villages. One time I came into a Karen-village where a woman was attacked by a bear. Because of the blow of its claw she was unconscious which was her luck. The animal sniffed around for a bit and walked away, because bears are not real meat eaters. When you during a meeting with a bear remain quietly standing, the bear quit often goes off. But sometimes the bear is aggressive and then you have to save yourself, which is not so easy. Running doesn't work, a bear are a lot faster than you think. They are excellent climbers so trees won't save you either. Some bush walkers give the advice to run into a thick bamboo forest. Bears are too bulky and big to get you. Of course in your hour of need there won't be a bamboo forest. To lie dead like the Karen-woman maybe the best thing to do. The Swiss biologist Hans Baenziger studies the pollination of tropical orchids. Often these grow high up in trees, deep in the jungle. He sometimes sits for weeks, lonely, on a branch 40 meter above the ground waiting for until a pollinator flies in. One time 8 pollinations took place within an hour. I almost fell of because of the excitement!
Baenziger has never been attacked by a big animal. I have been battered by wasps high up in a tree, which wasn't very funny. And I have been sitting in a tree for a whole day, which the next day was collapsed. Quite often you can't see on the outside how rotten a tree is. Falling trees can be great danger in the jungle. Biologists Jeremy and Patricia Raemakers are gibbon-researchers, who during a storm experienced an epidemic of falling trees. In their diary the write: Behind us a tree went down just where we stood only a while ago. It was a huge tree of 40 meters that appeared to be healthy. Within 3 seconds it was collapsed! Another giant almost fell on our rain gauge. Day and night we hear the dull thunder and trashing. The scary part is you can't run anywhere, we are surrounded by trees and the chance of one tree falling is as big as the next.
Just Lost
A bigger danger in the jungle than sudden falling trees is just getting lost. Without a compass it is almost impossible to orientate yourself in the forest. Even when you can see the sun, it always stands straight above the forest, not very useful either. It is pretty dark and often around 5 o'clock in the afternoon it is almost night. Less experienced jungle trekkers panic and start walking faster without paying attention. They increase the chance of interrupting a poisonous snake and get hurt when they fall. When you ever get lost in the jungle, the best advice is to keep calm and follow a river or other waterway down stream. We don't say that it is easy. Along stream banks the forest is thicker and waterfalls and rapids can make walking in streams hazardous. Guide Stanley tells that outside trails you run the risk to fall into a dugout pit of poachers. Which are almost invisible and the razor-sharp bamboo spears can be deadly. They often are miles from any inhabited areas, so don't count on a poacher to check within a day if he caught something. Lost, tired and hungry you also become victim of mosquitoes, ticks and leeches. You won't die immediately, but you can get pretty ill. Malaria, contracted from mosquito bites, has an incubation period of a week. After a few days of the bite of a tick or leech you can get a nasty infection. At first not life threatening, but it increases the already feeling of misery. If you under these circumstances meet another person, it wouldn't automatically mean you're saved. Worse, human beings are the most dangerous animals of prey in the jungle. Professor Brockelman: In areas where I work poachers are generally friendly people, but in protected natural areas they might think you are a spy.
Hans Baenziger once near the Burmese border ran into a barrack where heroine was made. Drug traders won't hesitate and rather don't have any people sniffing around. Luckily they never saw me. Members of the resistance who hid in the jungle weren't pleased with any visitors. You become very quickly a spy. They don't take risks; the safest thing to do is to waste the uninvited visitor. Guide Stanley confesses that he is more scared of robbers than for all the king cobras together.
When someone disappears in the jungle we can only guess what happened. Lost, killed, poisoned or eaten? Statistics on dangers of the jungle are not complete at all. Maybe something can be guessed from the casualties-bookkeeping of Khao Yai, a heavily visited national park in Thailand. Since 1961 this is protected jungle and the park keeps its administration. Getting lost is not a big issue because of the good trails. Many accidents happen near steep and slippery waterfalls, every year a few people die here. In 35 year less than 10 persons were killed by big game, mainly by tigers and elephants. But 30 people got killed in car accidents on the road through the park.
Translated by Martin Greijmans from the original text from Sjon Hauser, KIJK JULI 1998, page 16-19.
According to Warren Brockelman the greatest danger in the tropical forest is getting lost; the greatest danger of working in a forest is getting there and away; second greatest danger was wrecking your vehicle or motorcycle in the park; third is falling down a waterfall.
