A lost baby elephant with wounds on its foot was found wandering through a village and was rescued by kind locals.

The one-year-old juvenile jumbo named Plai Hansa by volunteers was spotted by a farmer alone in a rubber plantation 2.5 miles (4km) from her house in Chanthaburi province, Thailand on October 17.

Plai Hansa left the area and was searched by villagers before being led to a pond before the forest rangers were called to the scene to assist.

Footage shows Plai Hansa walking on the street with a rope around its neck which the residents put to prevent it from leaving until help arrived.

The rescue team went to the area and built a bamboo enclosure for the animal where they checked its injuries on its right ankle. The deep lacerations were believed to have been caused by a rope sustained by the animal after it was separated from its herd.

Waleerat Waenngern, 57, who first saw the baby elephant said: 'I did not go near it immediately because its family might be nearby. I searched for it again with the help of my dog.

'We force it to move to the pond so we could easily keep it until the professionals come to help us with what to do.'

Veterinarians cleaned and treated its wounds and fed it with three cartons of milk.

Plai Hansa will recover in captivity and later be moved to an enclosure deep in the forest where the calf can wait for its herd to find it.

Thailand has up to 3,500 elephants in the wild. The population has been increasing in recent years, but it is still a fraction of the estimated 300,000 wild elephants that lived in the country 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.