A hungry elephant grabbed a woman with its trunk to stop her from running away with his lunch.

The jumbo saw the corn that the tourist was holding and stopped her as she tried to dash by him at an animal camp in Surin province, Thailand, on January 30.

Footage shows the animal curling its trunk to block the woman from leaving with the uncooked corn, which is used to feed the animals at the facility.

However, the woman quickly passed the corn to an old man and posed for pictures together with the elephant before finally giving it the food.

Thailand has around 4,000 elephants in captivity. They are used in the tourist industry, hired out for weddings and religious festivals or occasionally kept as pets or rehabilitated in sanctuaries.

Animal rights groups continue to call for elephants to be released but the majority of Thais believe that they have the right to detain them for 'cultural reasons'.