Elephant tramples UK tourist to death
Print Edition
A British tourist has been trampled to death by an elephant on the Thai tourist island of Koh Samui, police said yesterday, the latest deadly attack by animals used to entertain holidaymakers.
The man, identified by police as Gareth Crowe, 36, was riding on the animal’s back with his daughter on Monday afternoon when it suddenly threw them off, police said.
“We suspect that the hot weather made the elephant angry and that he was not accustomed to his mahout,” said Paiboon Omark, Samui district chief.
A mahout is a person who trains, controls and rides an elephant, usually after years of cultivating a close bond with the animal.
Paiboon said Crowe had a prosthetic leg and was unable to run away from the marauding pachyderm.
His daughter and the mahout, a Myanmar national, were both injured but escaped, he added.
The elephant, named “Golf,” was tranquillised and brought under control, he said.
Thailand has an estimated 4,000 domesticated elephants, many working in the tourism trade, alongside some 2,500 wild elephants.
In August, an elephant killed his mahout with three terrified Chinese tourists still on his back. The tourists survived the ordeal.
Thailand’s use of animals for tourism is under increased scrutiny following a string of scandals and investigations by rights groups.
The government is currently locked in a battle with a controversial “Tiger Temple” that refuses to hand over hundreds of big cats despite holding them illegally.
Conservationists are meeting with Thai government officials today to lobby for better animal welfare standards across the tourism trade.
“In my view, male elephants should not be in the tourism industry, they’re simply too unpredictable,” said Edwin Wiek, from Wildlife Friends of Thailand, one of the groups attending the meeting.
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