A male elephant crossed a road and held up traffic in rural Thailand.

Footage shows the lone bull emerging from a street and strolling across the highway in Khao Yai National Park in Phetchaburi province on October 26.

It caused drivers to stop while others backed away to avoid the animal's path.

The elephant later left the area and returned to the forest, with officers closely behind.

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.