Walking With Elephants....

[BushPig1963]

Never a good idea to ignore the warning signs and get out of a perfectly safe car to take photos of an elephant breeding herd. The Spanish tourist did not last long it would seem....
Pilanesberg National Park on Sunday morning......

Horror as tourist crushed to death by elephants in front of screaming fiancée

GRAPHIC CONTENT WARNING: A Spanish tourist has been crushed to death by an angry herd of elephants in front of his screaming fiancee

www.express.co.uk

 

[Ridge Runner]

I was taught, One should never speak ill of the dead. BUT,....
________________________________________________

My Sincerest condolences to his fiancée, family and friends.

 

[bakerb]

There is a large segment of the world population, mostly concentrated in urban environments, that have no concept that wild animals are WILD. They are so far removed from the natural world in their day to day lives that they just cannot understand that animals (even domesticated ones) can be wild and dangerous.

You can erect signs warning them. They'll walk right by them and ignore them. They just can't believe that an animal that they see on the Discovery channel or Animal Planet could be harmful to them in any way.

Yellowstone National Park has signs EVERYWHERE. Yet people still believe the animals are tame. The park rangers are commonly asked when they put the animals up at night. . . . I saw a legitimate review of Yellowstone where the reviewer gave 1 star because the park didn't have any bears out where they could see them. . . .

People

 

[BushPig1963]

I was taught, One should never speak ill of the dead. BUT,....
________________________________________________

My Sincerest condolences to his fiancée, family and friends.

My worry is always when something happens like this is if there could be an angry reaction to the animals who then get euthanised through no fault of their own. It seems in this case the elephants are safe as they were acting on instinct? I hope so

 

[C.W. Richter]

Natural Selection in action. Political parties nowadays have slowed the process down by propping those people up with tax monies, but that's one that slipped through the wire. There are many other examples, annually (Bison, Elk, bear, hippo, croc, etc.) Like many DG safaris, perhaps the parks should have a mandatory safety video prior to entry (but then again, it just reinforces the aforementioned.) Educate yourself about where you're headed to...

 

[randallhebert]

My worry is always when something happens like this is if there could be an angry reaction to the animals who then get euthanised through no fault of their own. It seems in this case the elephants are safe as they were acting on instinct? I hope so

That what happens with the nuisance alligators here. People feed them and when they come up to someone with no food they claim it was attacking. I get called. Dead gator. If it's fed, it's dead

 

[Nyati]

RIP, but......a complete idiot.

 

[Pheroze]

How many reports like this has there been in the last year? It seems like an epidemic. Very sad, especially as it was so preventable.

 

[VertigoBE]

Seems like a candidate for the Darwin Awards.

 

[WyoBull]

Sounds like up here in Yellowstone NP every year.
We went through that wildlife park last year when we were over there. It was a pretty cool side excursion and experience.

 

[mdwest]

Wow! what a disaster..

Our party that is hunting in the NW Province in a couple of weeks is planning on visiting Pilanesberg National Park while we are in South Africa.. We operate a small business that donates its proceeds to the Pilanesberg Wildlife Trust (just something we do to aid in conservation.. not something we do for a living).. We're going to drop off a check, and we wanted to spend an afternoon observing "the big 5"while we are there..

Im hoping the recent nature of this incident doesnt impact the parks operations or the animals involved..

Humans.. always screwing things up for the animals.. Sad really.. on many levels..

 

[Ridge Runner]

My worry is always when something happens like this is if there could be an angry reaction to the animals who then get euthanised through no fault of their own. It seems in this case the elephants are safe as they were acting on instinct? I hope so

I do have my opinion of the matter and I do agree with you.

But I must restrain myself due to allowance of those in morning and those still grieving their loss of others mentioned in the article that died of their own doing.

The only 2 true losses were the 2 going about their daily duties.

This isn't the first time nor will it be the last of discussions on the gene pool of like minded, gotta get closer, gotta have a selfie, types.

 

[Tanks]

You couldn’t pay me enough to approach an elephant COW, especially with a calf let alone a herd in plain sight. Heck, I wouldn’t want to do that armed.

I have been within 15-20 yards of cows in the past but that took minutes of careful approach while being very quiet and downwind of them.

 

[C.W. Richter]

That what happens with the nuisance alligators here. People feed them and when they come up to someone with no food they claim it was attacking. I get called. Dead gator. If it's fed, it's dead

sometimes w/ black bear near me. and that's sad!

 

[C.W. Richter]

Definitely a student of the Disney School of Wildlife (i.e. flying elephants, crying w/ long eyelashes, hugging/kissing humans etc.) and in the end, it showed. RIP. Perhaps a few others learned something that day?...Reading comprehension is also key (warning signs.)

 

[Roland Tembo]

Agree with previous comments... social media, mobile phones and disneyfication of animal kingdom in the end will overcome through natural selection all the efforts and precautions taken by western civiled countries to not leave anyone behind, idiots included.

 

[Doug Hamilton]

There is a large segment of the world population, mostly concentrated in urban environments, that have no concept that wild animals are WILD. They are so far removed from the natural world in their day to day lives that they just cannot understand that animals (even domesticated ones) can be wild and dangerous.

You can erect signs warning them. They'll walk right by them and ignore them. They just can't believe that an animal that they see on the Discovery channel or Animal Planet could be harmful to them in any way.

Yellowstone National Park has signs EVERYWHERE. Yet people still believe the animals are tame. The park rangers are commonly asked when they put the animals up at night. . . . I saw a legitimate review of Yellowstone where the reviewer gave 1 star because the park didn't have any bears out where they could see them. . . .

People

Kind of reminds me of Timothy Treadwell. He claimed the brown bears knew he was there to protect them, and was "fully accepted as a brother to the bears." Then they ate him and his girlfriend.

Ah, the world of nature according to Disney.

 

[358 Norma]

Kind of reminds me of Timothy Treadwell. He claimed the brown bears knew he was there to protect them, and was "fully accepted as a brother to the bears." Then they ate him and his girlfriend.

Ah, the world of nature according to Disney.

To be honest, he did protect them from starvation!

 

[Doug Hamilton]

To be honest, he did protect them from starvation!

Which is a good use of animal rights activists!