文字难度：★★★★☆
How do you keep a pachyderm out of your garden? That sounds like a wry riddle, but it’s a real challenge in Southeast Asia, where hungry elephants emerge from forests to gobble crops. In the Salakpra region of western Thailand, 462 such raids cost farmers about $30,000 in 2006 alone.
怎样才能让大象远离你家的花园？这听上去像是一个荒谬的谜题，但在东南亚却是一个不小的挑战，这个地区到处都有饥饿的大象从森林中窜出来大啖农作物。在泰国西部的萨拉卡帕地区，仅2006年一年就有462起大象袭击事件，造成农民的损失达30,000美元。
One novel answer to the problem: shimmering CDs. To keep elephants out of his irresistibly sweet sugarcane, Salakpra farmer Surachai Limpakanchanathawi took the advice of the Elephant Conservation Network and in 2007 hung CDs from fences, training spotlights on the discs. Swaying in the breeze, the illuminated CDs turned elephants around in their tracks—something single strands of electrified wire had often failed to do. Limpakanchanathawi soon abandoned the CDs for an even better method. With help from the army, his community dug a trench in an empty streambed between the forest and their fields. The ditch is 90 percent effective at halting elephants. No technique is guaranteed to work forever, though. “Elephants are intelligent,” says researcher Belinda Stewart-Cox. “They suss things out.”
这个问题有了新奇的解决方案：闪闪发光的光碟。萨拉卡帕地区的农民苏拉起·林帕坎查那萨威为了让大象远离他那极度甜的甘蔗，听取了大象保护网的意见，于2007年在围栏上挂满光碟，并让其发出耀眼的光。这些发光的光碟在微风中摇曳，大象看到了掉头离去。一排通电的铁丝网远没有这样的威力。林帕坎查那萨威很快找到了更好的法子。在军方的协助下，他的社区在森林和农田间的空河床上挖了一条沟渠。这条沟渠非常有效，能阻拦90%的大象。但是，没有什么方法永远有效。“大象非常聪明，”研究人员贝琳达·史都华—库可斯说：“它们知道是怎么一回事。”