[imagesource:youtube]

Shame, I always find myself empathising with the animal in a situation where it’s attacking people.

That’s because more often than not, it is the humans who have come into their safe space, interfered with their lives and then they merely react naturally to the stressful situation, which in turn becomes a danger to the people.

Granted, sometimes an attack is just a malicious attack.

In the case of this one charging bull elephant in the Pilanesberg National Park, located north of Rustenburg in the North West Province of South Africa, it seems as though the intelligent animal was already highly stressed out when it spotted a safari jeep with tourists.

The video only shows the start of the attack, with the elephant charging the back-tracking vehicle before lifting it with its tusks a couple of times. However, someone commented on the YouTube video of the incident, “Unfortunately the video only shows the end of the story and not the complete story.”

The commentator, with a nonsensical handle @ldyjnhunt3545, said that their friend has the full video that paints a more rounded picture of the events. The person said that the guide and tourists were “quietly” in a car parking lot when the elephant came towards them, and ignoring the guide’s warning shouts and bangs, began charging towards the vehicle.

Based on the available footage, one might deduce that the guide had driven right into the angry elephant’s territory, but this commentator is pleading for understanding and sympathy towards the guide:

“Whether or not the guide took the correct action next is not for me to say, but he took what he thought was the correct action to protect his guests and those on the car park. He started his engine and revved it, hoping the elephant would leave the car park. I understand why he did it and hindsight is a wonderful thing.

I hope the full video is released because I am sure you will all feel some compassion towards the guide and how absolutely terrified he must have been, whilst taking actions to protect others in a very difficult situation.”

Until that video is seen, which nobody has shared, we will only ever have half the picture. It is a terrifying one, and the guide and guests will definitely have been substantially traumatised after the ordeal.

See them cowering behind the seats towards the end of the video:

As for the elephant, Melissa Wray wrote for Siyabona Africa on a study about elephant dung expressing how stressed out people make the animals, saying that “just as a person may be internally stressed but appear outwardly calm, it is also possible for elephants to suffer unnoticed from stress until one day something causes aggressive behaviour that is seemingly out of proportion”.

In analysing samples of elephant dung – some from the elephants in Pilanesberg – the scientists found that spikes in stress hormone levels in the dung corresponded to daily changes in the intensity of game drives near the elephants, with uncontrolled game viewing of many vehicles clustering around the elephants producing the worst stress.

So yes, it is fair to say that this elephant bull was beyond stressed.

It is generally recommended that tourists remain 30 to 50 metres away to ensure that the elephants’ behaviour remains unaffected by the presence of people or cars.

[source:southafrican]