Drone footage shows a herd of elephants crossing a road in central Thailand.

Some 40 jumbos lumbered across the highway as they returned to a forest at the Khao Ang Rue Nai Wildlife Sanctuary in Chachoengsao, on November 17.

Several calves were seen in the middle of the huddle, flanked and guided by the larger pachyderms that led the way.

They trudged past wire fences and crossed a river as they made their way back into the jungle.

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.