An elephant in northern Thailand went berserk Wednesday, killing his
"mahout" keeper before running off into the jungle with three terrified
Chinese tourists still on his back, police said.
"The mahout who
was killed was Karen and he was not familiar with the elephant. They
[the tourists] are safe now," Colonel Thawatchai Thepboon, police
commander of Mae Wang district in Chiang Mai province, told AFP.
The Karen are an ethnic minority common in northern Thailand.
Police
said the incident took place at 21.30 as a Chinese family of three, a
father, mother and a young child took a ride on the back of a male
elephant.
Rides
are a popular and lucrative tourist activity but many animal rights
groups say it is cruel and stressful for the pachyderms.
The elephant had not taken easily to his new keeper and turned on him suddenly, goring him to death, Channel 3 reported.
The
channel broadcast footage of the three frightened tourists being led
back to camp still on the elephant's back once it had been calmed down
by other mahouts and their rides.
Thailand's roughly 4 000 domesticated elephants outnumber an estimated 2 500 remaining in the wild.
Domestic
elephants in Thailand, where the pachyderm is a national symbol have
been used en masse in the tourist trade since they found themselves
unemployed in 1989 when logging was banned.
Accidents are not
unheard of. In June an elephant killed a Thai man and injured another as
they were eating dinner at a beachside restaurant. The pair had been
talking to the animal's mahout when it suddenly flipped.
Rights
groups have documented the more unscrupulous mahouts using controversial
techniques to crush the animal's spirit or severely overworking their
rides to make more money.
"Elephants work every day, of every
month, basically 365 days per year," Edwin Wiek, a campaigner from
Wildlife Friends of Thailand told AFP.
"If you had to do the same,
you would get stressed. It is the same for elephants. At some point
they become crazy and we can't control them."
The accident comes
as Thailand's tourism industry reels from last week's bombing of a
religious shrine in Bangkok, an attack that killed 20 people, mostly
ethnic Chinese devotees from across Asia.
Wednesday, August 26, 2015
Thai elephant kills trainer, runs off with Chinese family on its back
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