This is the funny moment a wildlife officer tried to calm an elephant down by singing to it - only for the animal to charge straight at him.

Villagers spotted the male jumbo named Salika - who is known for being troublesome - strolling on a golf course in Nakhon Nayok province on January 24. They called wildlife officer Phithak Jitsaniam to herd it back to the forest.

Footage shows Phithak approaching the large animal while wailing into a megaphone. Confident in his familiarity with the local elephants, he continued his singing believing it would calm down Salika.

But Phithak's plan backfired when the jumbo became even more agitated instead. It ran straight at the officers and drove them away before huffily turning its back to walk into the nearby forest.

Phithak blamed the megaphone for his bad singing. He said: 'I was hoping to sing to Salika to relieve his stress, but things didn't go as planned. He didn't like my singing voice, probably because it was distorted.'

No one was harmed, and the elephant left the golf course on its own.

Thailand has an estimated 2,000 Asian elephants living in the wild but there is often conflict when they come into contact with humans on roads and in villages. A similar number of elephants are kept captive where they work in zoos and are hired out for religious festivals and weddings.