A canoe carrying British tourists was capsized and trampled by an elephant in a crocodile-filled river in Botswana.
The bull elephant charged at several canoes which were on a wildlife safari in the Okavango Delta on Saturday. It was believed to have been protecting its young after the guides steering the canoes misjudged how close they could get.
The canoes, known as mokoros, were carrying pairs of British and American tourists. Mokoro safaris are popular for spotting elephants, crocodiles, hippopotamuses and birds including herons and kingfishers.
Footage shows the moment the elephant charges at the boats and the guides begin to back-paddle frantically. The elephant knocks over the two closest boats with its trunk, tipping the tourists into the water.
The elephant approaches the canoes before flipping one over
Then the bull walks away, but further footage shows one of the elephants barging into a tourist who has been left wading in the water. The woman becomes submerged and the elephant appears to rummage around to locate her. Later she is shown emerging from the water, able to stand, as the bull, another adult elephant and two young walk away.
It is not yet known which tour company was running the safari, but one receptionist told the Daily Mail that the group was made up of British and American visitors.
The woman wades away as the elephants leave
NAMUSAWAWAWAWAS/FACEN
“There was a lot of expensive camera equipment and phones lost or damaged, but it is a blessing nobody was badly hurt, but wild animals can be very unpredictable,” she said.
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A former South African game ranger who was shown the videos said: “This bull attacked because it was protecting its young, and it seems the guides misjudged how close they could take the tourists safely and made a potentially fatal mistake.
“They had a very lucky escape indeed because all four could just have easily been killed by that angry bull.
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“The woman was lucky not (to) have been gored, but if it had held her down for another few seconds, it would probably have drowned her, so she can praise the Lord he didn’t.
“There are thousands of these dug-out traditional makoro canoes on the delta, poling tourists through the reeds to view elephants, hippo, birds, buck and crocodiles.”
The incident is thought to have taken place on channels of the Okavango Delta outside the boundary of the protected wildlife area, near a village where foreign tourists often take trips with local guides, or polers, in traditional canoes carved from wood.
Marketed as one of the most serene ways to explore the Delta, makoro excursions are offered a slow glide through papyrus channels, bringing travellers up close to wildlife.
British tourists were involved in a similar incident in the area earlier this year, when a female elephant rammed a motorboat. It did not capsize.
Two female tourists, one from the UK and one from New Zealand, were also killed by a charging female elephant, which was with a calf, while walking on a safari in Zambia in July.
The most recent incident comes during Botswana’s peak safari season, when the Okavango Delta is in full flood. Each year rains in the Angolan highlands swell rivers that spill south into Botswana, transforming the desert into a vast inland oasis teeming with birds and animals.
Kevin Leo Smith, who ran a safari operation in the Delta for years which included makoro tours, said that having what looked like at least three boats on an outing may have disturbed the elephant cow that is seen to charge and flipped one of them.
“Ideally there should not be more than one boat in a group as having so many together can be seen by elephants as threatening. A single boat might have kept that elephant relaxed,” Smith said. “Once the problem starts, it quickly becomes chaos and I don’t think I can pass any criticism about what happened after that. In the end, it was the elephant that gave up the attack and the visitors survived. It could have turned out very differently.”
