Elephant Causes Almost $3,000 in Damage After EV Charging Station Confrontation

In a moment of nature coming face to face with the human world, an elephant was caught on camera showing some authority over an EV charging station in the Yunnan province of China. The moment, which happened on August 6 in Pu’er, went viral when footage was shared online of the elephant toppling a standing charger and causing over $3,000 of damages.

The footage shows a smaller elephant getting its leg entangled in the cabling of a charging station as the herd wanders by in the middle of the night.  While passing through, the younger elephant struggles for just a moment before managing to release its rear leg from the wires. The animal seems to shake off the moment quickly without becoming distressed.

However, this was enough to alert another larger elephant, which appears to take offence at the EV charger for accosting the smaller elephant. Squaring up with the charging station, the elephant steps right up to it and using its head pushed the whole station backwards, tearing it from its stand and toppling it over into the bushes.

Workers Cut the Power Before Anyone was Hurt

Many areas of Asian have wild animals roaming through streets. While this usually passes without incident, the elephant stand-off witnessed last week could have ended up as a dangerous situation thanks to its combination of animal and live electricity cabling.

Luckily, maintenance electricians were on site at the time the elephant caused the damage and they were able to shut off the power supply to remove the risk of electrocution to any of the elephants. At the time, there were no vehicles on the site, which was fortunate considering the elephants remained in the area for around half an hour.

The footage released online led to many people debating whether the elephant caused the damage because it wanted to defend the younger member of the heard, or whether it simply nudged the charger over out of curiosity. Either way, the resulting damage will cost around 20,000 yuan to repair, somewhere in the region of $3,000.

Wild Animals and Human Living Areas Don’t Always Mix

This latest incident of animals encroaching on built up areas is quite rare for the simple reason that there are not many Asian elephants that still live in the wild in the region. Reports suggest that 300 wild elephants are currently living in Yuannan province and with those numbers rising having any hurting themselves in incidents such as this could very quickly become a disaster for their population.

Yuannan itself has seen several expansions in recent years, with every one meaning animals passing through are more frequently put in the line of danger as they walk along roads and past electricity cables. Contact between elephants and electrical equipment is often far more harmful than a damaged charger, with wild elephants in parts of Asia regularly killed by electrocution after touching poles and live wires.

Elephants are not the only animals to have fallen foul of electrical cables recently. Last month a viral video clip showed a black bear being stuck at the top of an electric pole in Union County, New Mexico. While officials attempted to rescue the bear, it electricuted itself before they were able to help.

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