An elephant handler was killed by a bull elephant at the Knysna Elephant Park on Tuesday during a morning excursion, the International Fund for Animal Welfare said on Wednesday.
The incident at the park also raises questions regarding the safety of South Africa’s burgeoning elephant-back safari and tourism industry, said Ifaw spokesperson Christina Pretorius in a statement.
”Ifaw and its partner organisation, the Ethical Conservation Network (ECN), expressed dismay at the tragedy, but warned that as elephant tourism becomes more extensive, the chance of more people being injured and possibly killed by the giant pachyderms becomes more likely,”
Jason Bell-Leask, Ifaw’s director in Southern Africa, said: ”This is the first time someone has been killed by a so-called tame, trained elephant in South Africa, but elephants in the tourism industry are known to have injured several guests and handlers in recent years.”
He said the tragedy at the park between Knysna and Plettenberg Bay, which left the victim’s wife and three children without a husband and father, should sound warning bells about the dangers of this kind of tourism.
”It needs to be stopped, and it needs to be stopped now,” said Bell-Leask.
Bell-Leask said Ifaw and ECN recently launched their Born to be Wild! Campaign to oppose the removal of elephants from the wild for commercial purposes.
”Elephants are rapidly becoming conservation’s latest commodity with increasing numbers of animals being taken from the wild for lives in captivity, including the elephant back safari and tourism industry, he said.
”Training methods are entirely unregulated and therefore open to widespread abuse. No laws exist in South Africa to govern methods used in training elephants for safari tourism — trainers and handlers themselves do not require any formal training or education, and, the industry is generating an increasing demand for
elephants.”
According to Ifaw, South Africa’s elephant back safari and tourism industry began with a single operator four years ago.
It has since grown to include nine operators, with at least 72 elephants currently being used for this form of tourism in four of the country’s nine provinces, the statement read. – Sapa