A mahout toppled from an elephant when it mounted the back of another jumbo.

Footage shows the caretaker Kwan Hua riding the massive animal when the seven-year-old Bua Ban raised its upper body to lean and play with its friend in Surin province, Thailand, on September 7.

Kwan Hua slid off and fell to the grass but was unhurt and returned to tending to the animals.

As of 2023, there are an estimated 3,084-3,500 wild elephants in Thailand. The population has been increasing in recent years, but it is still a fraction of the estimated 300,000 wild elephants that lived in Thailand at the beginning of the 20th century. The main threats to wild elephants in Thailand are habitat loss and fragmentation, poaching, and conflict with humans.