Article: Elephant killing causes outrage

Several people have reacted with outrage at the Kruger National Park's decision to kill an aggressive elephant bull that attacked a couple on Monday.

"It was completely unnecessary to kill the elephant bull that damaged a car and injured a person yesterday in the Kruger Park. SANParks must provide us with the details of who took this decision and on what management level this utter stupid decision was taken," Robbie Botes wrote on the park's Facebook wall on Tuesday, a Sapa correspondent reported.
 
I'm also on these peoples side.

There was no need to kill the bull elephant at all.
 
Let's start putting down public figures who show repeated signs of aggression instead, no?

Ball's sake though, you don't follow a wild animal around and then kill it hours later because it didn't react positively. People take the risk on themselves doing that, the animal should not suffer for their stupidity.
 
http://mybroadband.co.za/vb/showthr...n-in-KNP-after-attack?p=11815044#post11815044

supersunbird said:
I've had a elephant ambush me. BIG male.

He was walking on a dirt road and didn't want to get off it, (between Shingwedzi and Letaba) I had reversed about 2km for him already. Eventually he goes off the road into bushes, there was about 100m grass clearing between the road and the bushes. As I pass the spot he storms out at full charge, luckily I was ready and accelerated away in a cloud of dust.
Click to expand...

As someone said in that thread, you get ahole elephants. We'd put ahole humans, like this guy http://mybroadband.co.za/vb/showthread.php/584486-4-year-old-raped-and-murdered-in-Brakpan, down too but there would be people blocking and moaning and such about that too.
 
I'm in 2 minds. I think people are on a bandwagon and are ignoring the fact that this particular animal has a history of ornery behavior. I also don't like the fact that the animal had to be destroyed, but I think the rangers who run the park are in a place to make informed decisions and we should also respect them as professionals and the decisions they make.
 
I still think that it is people's fault for getting too close.

I keep my vehicles a good 100 meters away from elephants, Rhino, Hippo and Buffalo. They can move fast and they can do damage.

But then you see idiots pushing past you in their vehicles to drive right up next to the elephant.
They they cry when the elephant squashes their car.
 
I've been stormed by big elephants (I've got a photo of one that made a delivery truck seem minutely small) and it's no fun at all.

I was there on Monday. It's not a pleasant experience. The car was an absolute wreck.
That said, you can't let an elephant that has done this once, live - it WILL do it again - they've got a memory like nothing else out there and their aggression will only get worse.

I saw some greenies say that the couple provoked and did not heed the warning that the elephant provided - their was little warning, if at all. I think some people fail to realise how much acceleration these big animals have. This morning a big buffalo ran across the road (from standstill) and crossed the road in, having to guess, maybe 2 seconds, if even. Elephants are just as fast, and if one comes at you, if you don't freeze up, you still have very little time to get the car out of the way, manual or automatic.
 
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