It has been reported that on 10 May a 68 year old woman from Pretoria went for a walk alone outside the camp in Kruger National Park. After her husband reported her missing a search eventually found her body where she was killed by elephants. Poor woman possibly thought that were as sweet natured as they seem on TV until they enlightened her. R I P

Wow RIP

I’d imagine death by elephant would be fairly traumatic

Very sad to hear this!

RIP!

She needed to:

https://fieldethos.com/take-a-fat-guy-with-you/

Recently I was contracted to look after a film crew in Luangwa for a month. I would walk around in the bush, checking everything was safe, and walked into an elephant. Fortunately, he was cool, and after a head shake, I gave him his distance. I was not concentrating, and an easy mistake to make.

While loss of life is sad and should not be celebrated.....The word tragic does not come to mind here. The Camp is Sihereni in the Northern KNP and as with all camps has a fence and gate. No one is allowed outside the gate on foot and there are gate hours posted when they close and open. You may not get out of their vehicles unless in very specific designated places. This is a very clear and tacid instruction and understanding of visitors to the Kruger. In fact you signs affirmation of the rules on entry ! According the KNP statement this person left the camp through the gate on foot. So sadly the result of poor decisions

When the gate is closed at night is it not also locked ? It seems, also, there is / was no night guard posted at the gate.
Certainly difficult to fathom why a person would want to wander around outside a compound in the dead of night. I can't believe she did not have at least some inkling of potential dangers.

quote:

Originally posted by fairgame:
Recently I was contracted to look after a film crew in Luangwa for a month. I would walk around in the bush, checking everything was safe, and walked into an elephant. Fortunately, he was cool, and after a head shake, I gave him his distance. I was not concentrating, and an easy mistake to make.

The several Elephant encounters I've experienced, while afoot, hunting, have surprised me. After having hunted Africa several times I remain but an amateur in being aware of Elephants. Had I not been in company of a PH and trackers I would have walked smack into several of those Elephants completely unaware of their nearness. The PH and trackers have always been very keen to immediately grant Elephant their safe space by immediately retreating. Just how silent and inconspicuous Elephant can be, particularly in decent jesse, always spices my hunts with the awareness of potential danger in unexpected encounters when roving through Elephant territory.

What a shame.

RIP to this poor woman and condolences and sympathy to her friends and family.

It seems to me, however, that she, alone, is to blame for her fate.

This case proves again that there is no such thing as foolproof.

Terrible shame for sure. It's easy to bump into elephant inadvertently, or vice versa, especially in heavy cover, and the reaction can be quite varied. Sometimes, you can back out without being discovered, sometimes they see you first. I've had the display, trumpeting, flaring ears, throwing grass, displays, to tuskless cows who were damn serious. The funniest I ever had was chasing guineafowl on the banks of the Ruaha River in the Selous back in 2008. The gari broke down and I didn't want to sit in camp while it was repaired, so we walked the riverine forest along the bank. We jumped a flock of guineas so I passed my .416 to the tracker and took off with a shotgun with bird shot, at a run, trying to get them to fly.

Well, we broke into a little vlei with a cow elephant and a very small calf standing in the middle barely 20 yards away. She spun to face me and froze. I froze and looked over my shoulder for the tracker with my .416 but he was nowhere in sight. After a pregnant pause, the cow tucked her trunk under her little one's but and exited stage right.

The hunt was over for the day. I went back to camp and put a hell of a dent in a bottle of Scotch. But it very easily could have gone the other way and it wouldn't have been the elephant's fault.

quote:

We jumped a flock of guineas so I passed my .416 to the tracker and took off with a shotgun with bird shot

The last guy I heard of pulling a similar stunt came face to face with a rather irate buffalo which regardless of receiving both barrels of #4 pellets in the face pressed its charge home.

Needless to say the luckless PH ended up in a hospital in Arusha luckily surviving the ordeal
with only a broken leg, if I recall.

many incidents happen in Africa we do not hear about.

And the number of times we hunters do stupid things and get away with it.

Sheer luck.

I can remember many incident happened to us, and in hindsight we were very lucky.

We stooped close to a water hole in Zimbabwe, and walked to it to see any tracks.

Found the tracks of a lion pride, with little ones.

Then saw a wet patch where one of them peed.

VERY FRESH!

We made a hasty retreat to the truck!

Sad story about the woman but I just returned from Zim last week. Las time I hunted Elephant was in 07. We were Tuskless Ele and Buff hunting and we were literally run out numerous times by the Ele. My PH told me they were very aggressive and it proved out in spades. The big thing that saved our Asses was his ability to read the situation. Throw in a Bull in must for more aggression. On top of all that, the bush was very thick and you don't totally know where they are all at. They are not the Dumbo's a lot of people think.

Fulvio,

I definitely was not feeling very bright at that moment.

Anyone who has hunted for a while would probably remember many times sheer luck saved him from danger.

You are out in the bush, anything can happen, and you better be on your toes.

Even then, if your number is up, you know what would happen!

I can remember many instances where only luck saved us.

True.

We were hunting elephant in the Caprivi and heard crashing to our left.

Out of thick brush walked four elephant bulls in single file.

They stopped right in front of us.

And turned to face us head on.

10 yards away.

The Four Bulls of The Apocalypse.

None had big enough teeth, but all were enormous bulls.

We just stood there like stones while they stared at us.

After about a minute, they slowly turned away and kept on truckin'.

We exhaled in relief and burst out laughing, as one often does in those situations.

quote:

But it very easily could have gone the other way and it wouldn't have been the elephant's fault.

This is a great statement that most "hunters' don't have the courage to make. I am reminded of a couple on here hunting elephant who had to "deal" with an "unprovoked" charge. A truly ridiculous statement, sounds like something an infantile child would say to defend himself, "he made me do it".

I have been fortunate enough to have taken 3 elephants. Some experience , but admittedly not as much as many on this forum. Having said that, early on I realized a bedrock principle the PH had. Once you find the elephant(s), Make sure you locate every elephant in the vicinity!!

Otherwise, it can go pear shaped very quickly.