iStockphoto
Elephants next to a poacher with a gun
Elephants are one of the many animals in Africa that are routinely targeted by poachers who have been a scourge there for centuries. However, one man who was reportedly attempting to kill a rhino in a national park in South Africa saw the tables turned after he was trampled by a pack of the world’s biggest pachyderms.
Africa is home to a significant number of species of animals that can only be found in the wild on the continent, and some of the more recognizable members of that group have been luring visitors for hundreds of years.
Upwards of five million people visit Africa each year for safaris where most of them are hoping to get a glimpse of the animals that comprise what is known as the “Big Five”: lions, leopards, buffalo, rhinos, and elephants.
That term was originally coined by the foreign hunters who started flocking there in the 1800s while decimating the population of those mammals. Elephants and rhinos were particularly prized due to the ivory contained in the tusks of the former and the horns of the latter, which are linked to unsubstantiated medicinal claims.
There’s been a massive crackdown on poaching in Africa since the second half of the 20th century, but it’s still a major problem for officials and game wardens who have their hands full. They were unable to stop a couple of people from sneaking into a national park in Africa earlier this month, but some elephants ended up taking care of the situation.
A suspected rhino poacher was trampled to death by elephants inside Kruger National Park in South Africa
Kruger National Park is a 7,576 square mile expanse located in the northeastern corner of South Africa that shares a border with Mozambique and Zimbabwe. It features nearly 150 distinct species of mammals (including every member of the Big Five), and a significant portion is lined by fences partially designed to prevent poachers from gaining access.
However, according to The Citizen, two unauthorized visitors were recently able to infiltrate the Pafuri area of the park on Friday, September 11th, and The Sun reports they were armed with a rifle and an axe to facilitate a poaching expedition.
The second outlet says they were tracking a herd of white rhinos the following day and lining up a shot when they were ambushed by a pack of elephants that charged at them after bursting out of the bush. Park officials say the duo “fled in different directions, subsequently losing contact with one another,” and one of the men eventually reported the other was missing while saying “he had heard him screaming during the incident.”
Rangers subsequently began a search and followed tracks along the Luvuvhu River, where they trekked for approximately six miles before coming across the body of the other man (which was in the vicinity of the carcass of a buffalo they “believed to have been illegally hunted”).
Elephants are incredibly intelligent creatures, and there is evidence they are able to not only identify poachers but go out of their way to exact revenge; in 2022, a woman who was believed to have had ties to a group of illegal hunters in India was killed by an elephant before a pack of them returned to ransack the village where her funeral was being held.