Professional game ranger, Brian Masters has been on the receiving end of a lot of hate mail after a video of him charging an elephant bull was posted to YouTube earlier this month. Masters, completely intoxicated, chases and taunts a fully grown elephant, with the support of his friends. This video, shot in Kruger National Park, has cost Masters his job as a conservationist.

Check out the video and read his apology, here.

Masters was on air with Dan and Richard this afternoon at 15h30 to talk about “the incident”.

Below are a few choice quotes from the interview, as well as the full length podcast.

“I’m putting my hand up and accepting the responsibility.”

“It was never meant to be an act of malice. I know some people were angry that I endangered myself, and I certainly did. But for six years I did walking safaris, and was approaching game on foot, obviously not like that. But I had had enough experience that I felt that should things escalate, I would be able to control them.”

“Dealing with wild animals is always dangerous, and there is that element of unpredictability, but there are set responses to certain actions. When I ran at it, I was asserting a lot of dominance, and a lot of aggression toward that elephant. When I stepped back and fell in the hole, suddenly you saw the posture of that elephant change, because I was showing submission and retiring from the conflict, he started to advance. That’s I had no choice but to jump up and go very hard at the elephant, in order to deter it. The elephant itself at the end of the day didn’t want to get in to a conflict situation.”

“I’ve done 13 years based in and around the Kruger conducting walking and driving safaris. I hoped that what I was doing was to promote eco tourism and responsible guiding, and what I’ve done in those 45 seconds is undo all of that work, because it goes against the ethos of everything that guiding stands for.”

“It’s time to take stock. A situation like this has the potential to define a man. I need to make a decision whether I should continue my life and career in the bush, or whether this is perhaps time to start a new chapter.”

“When the video was made, we did chuckle at the video, but I did recognise the damage that it could do. We thought we had contained it and destroyed it. We don’t know who posted it, and what have you, but it doesn’t matter who did. It’s kind of a good thing that got out. I hope young guides see that and see the stupidity in that.”