Thursday 22 July 2010

Elephant in stealth attack on keeper

From The Daily Mail:

Anne Baker, the zoo's director, said it's not clear why Louie, turned on the keeper. The elephant and Mr Redfox had been together nearly every day since the animal's birth seven years ago. It looks as if Louie was startled and then started play-fighting, as elephants do in the wild, Ms Baker said.

Mr Redfox makes it a habit to talk to the animals before he approaches so he doesn't surprise them, Ms Baker said. She thinks he didn't do it this time because he didn't know Louie was around the corner when he walked into the enclosure carrying a bag of carrots...

UPDATE: I've now watched the video, there was no "corner" involved, the elephant was in full view at all times, and there's a funny jump at 47 seconds in:

5 comments:

formertory said...

Redfox? Good name, given the job.

Perhaps Louie thought there was some low cunning and skullduggery afoot, and decided on pre-emptive action. No doubt inspired by the cows.

Do elephants taste like chicken?

dearieme said...

Or a heck of a big bag of carrots. Anyway, when approaching an elephant be sure to stamp firmly on the ground so that they know you're there by sensing the vibrations. Or is that snakes?

dearieme said...

P.S. Cow news.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20643743?dopt=Abstract

JuliaM said...

Have viewed the video - he seemed to be determined to do just about everything possible to get attacked, short of shouting 'Dumbo's mum wears army boots'...

Mark Wadsworth said...

FT, no doubt cows' ESP extends to elephants.

D, nope - stamping on the ground is what you do to kill snakes. I'm disappointed that you have no anecdote involving you, a motor vehicle and a collision with an elephant. I read that article yesterday and it leaves me baffled.

JM, indeed, I have now embedded the video.