Man gored to death by elephant

April 19 2005 at 05:11PM

By Daniel Wallis

Kampala - An elephant gored a tourist to death in a Ugandan national park after the man, carrying an eight-year-old boy in his arms, approached the animal's calf, wildlife officials said on Tuesday.

The elephant used its trunk to hurl the man into a tree, before stamping on him and spearing him with its tusks in Murchison Falls National Park. The 28-year-old man threw the child to safety.

"The tourists were with our ranger, but they alighted from their vehicles and approached quite a huge herd," Ugandan Wildlife Authority (UWA) spokesperson Lillian Nsubuga said.

'They have usually been disturbed by poachers, who move on foot, so they become hostile'
"He says he tried to dissuade them from going closer."

Female elephants are fiercely protective of their young.

Tens of thousands of holidaymakers visit Uganda every year, drawn by the east African country's rich wildlife and stunning national parks. Animal attacks are very rare.

Nsubuga said game drives were very safe, but illegal hunting had made elephants in Murchison and Uganda's other parks wary of people approaching on foot.


Murchison Falls, 300km north-west of the capital Kampala, is Uganda's biggest park.

Sunday's attack took place during a game drive near Nyamsika Cliff, overlooking the Victoria Nile near the falls where it flows into Lake Albert.

Six of the tourists, said by authorities to be Ugandans of Indian origin, left their cars and began photographing an elephant and calf.

A park worker told the state-owned New Vision newspaper the elephant charged at the man before picking him up, stepping on him and piercing his stomach with its tusks.

"It swung him around, hitting him on the trunk of a thick tree," he told the paper.

The man was dead by the time a rescue team arrived.

Nsubuga said it was not immediately clear whether the boy - who was unhurt - was his son or not. The family returned to Kampala, she said, where the man's body would be cremated.

Looks like these Eco-tourists will never learn; wild animals with young are not approachable and are very protective of their young. I guess they all watch too much Animal Planet and Disney stuff, kinda cute and totally unrealistic.

I do not believe in the evolution theory of man but sometimes I just for a moment reconsider.

Sounds like one less democrat to vote? Perhaps we should put him forward for a "darwin" award

On another forum a buttwipe commented that the PH who was recently killed basically got what he deserved.The goring was "an example of nature at it's best".I called him an idiot but got very little support from anyone else.

That said ,I think this guy was at least partially to blame for his on demise.Still I feel for his family.

It's Disney's fault for causing the general public to think that wild animals are cuddly and harmless. Sort of.

First of all, it is interesting, yet not suprising, that the tourists involved were locals from Kampala. While we were in Murchinson Falls, we met a handfull of people from Kampala while there. They were undoubtably some of the least "bush wise" locals we've met in africa! Most urban people in Kampala are very isolated from the ways of the wild. But then this goes for most city folk in africa, just like the majority of city folk anywhere.

Secondly, the elephants in Murchinson Falls were some of the most bitchy we've seen in africa. And we had a couple of close encounters there that have resulted in my wife not being too fond of elephants anymore. I don't know if this is due to poaching alone. I wonder about this because the elephants in Moremi (Botswana) are also known to have a bad temper, but I doubt that it is because of poaching.

So maybe it's also a genetic/breeding thing?