This Asian Black Bear loves Omelet, Facebook, and Tourism

1. All it took was for someone who had captured the bear on video to post it on social media to cause tourists to make the site part of their day tripping plans.
2. So many tourists have been arriving that the chief of the park has had to limit the number in that area at one time.
3. Khao Yai is well known as it was featured in a Leonardo Dicaprio movie, “The Beach.”

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Many tourists went to the Pha Trom Jai cliff, and most of them said they had seen a Facebook post about an Asian black bear that was attracted by an omelette at a food stall on the cliff, and they knew that the cliff was famous for its beautiful scenery during the rainy season, so they decided to make a day of it.

Pictures of the Asian black bear spread like wildfire and led to “Khao Yai Fever,” said Mr. Adisak Pusitwongsanuyut, Khao Yai National Park chief.

He said that they made the move to limit visitors to the cliff after seeing such a sharp increase in tourists attracted to the site.

The chief is limiting the number of visitors to the location in the national park as the “Khao Yai Fever” on social media is prompting people to flock into the natural tourist attraction and because of the surge in people, is raising concerns about a possible COVID-19 outbreak.

At the cliff, the number of visitors’ cars was limited to 30, that of visitors’ motorcycles to 50, and that of visitors’ bicycles to 30 at a time, he said, from Monday through Friday. On weekends and public holidays, which usually see an influx of visitors, the park’s opening hours were divided into 5 time slots which park officials can evaluate and decide at any given point how many vehicles would be allowed in during each time slot.

Khao Yai is a few hours northeast of Bangkok and featured in the movie “The Beach.” Interestingly, the star of “The Beach,” Leonardo DiCaprio, went on to later make a movie titled “The Revenant,” a movie about a frontiersman left for dead after being mauled by a grizzly bear. A role for which he won his very first Oscar as Best Actor, after already cultivating 101 other awards from 252 nominations.

This forest and grassland of Khao Yai National Park spans 2,000 square kilometers and is known for its 50 kilometers of hiking and biking trails and beautiful waterfalls.