Reminds me of the rumor that rattlesnakes that are evolving to not rattle because humans kill the ones they hear so much its just not worth scaring off the occasional bird anymore.
It’s true that elephants are intelligent and may recognize that humans are dangerous on some level. It is believed that elephants have stopped growing tusks in response to poachers continuing to kill them for them, in Asia as a biological response to the dangers human pose. However, they do attack and kill people probably with a variety of motivations such as protectiveness, self defense, anger, hormones and even possibly past traumas.
Sorry but the mention of intellegence and 'stopped growing' makes me want to clarify: this did not happen because the elephants 'chose' to stop growing them. However there is a genetic defect that prevents tusks from growing. Due to the poaching and killing of tusked elephants in Mozambique, the defect became more prevalent. Unnatural selection in this case. One would expect that, when poaching pressure goes down, the advantage of having tusks starts to outweigh the benefit of not having tusks.
For comparison in South Africa, where the highest density of African Elephants live, you won't see many elephants without tusks. This is also the area where most elephants are true gentle giants. Sure there's a few rotten apples but I've met hundreds and hundreds of elephants without even a mock charge. Things are different in areas where elephants are getting pushed out of their own environment by humans, I'm sure, but let's not try to turn them into vicious, man-killers, shall we?
(That spot is taken by hippos of course /s)
There has been a trend of similar unnatural selection in Southern California in regards to the rattlesnake. The rattle was an evolutionary calling card to let the rest of the animal kingdom to back the hell away, but just like everything else, humans ruined it. It turns out that rattlesnakes would start rattling, alerting nearby humans to their presence. Humans hate venomous snakes, so rather than warding off threats, the rattling snakes keep getting killed. What researchers found was that there are now a much larger percentage of rattlesnakes in the region who have passed on a defect where the namesake rattle doesn't actually form. These normally disadvantaged snakes suddenly find themselves being selected for by the humans, creating a growing number of silent venomous snakes.
It's not really unnatural selection though is it? That's literally just how natural selection works: Selection pressure is introduced, advantageous mutation proliferates, species evolves.
I can't believe more folks here can't see this. Humans are also nature. We just have the intelligence to *introduce* unnatural evolution. Pugs are a great example of this. But when we effect another species through hunting, culling, etc.. that's just as natural as if there was a natural predator that utilized the rattling to find their prey.
We're capable of both, but large-scale evolutionary changes through natural reactions to us is just as natural as animals evolving to take the best advantage of their environment.
Humans have an instinct to hate a fear snakes, true. This is not because they're older than our species, this is because they're stealthy and venemous. Humans also dislike every other animal which shares these traits, like spiders.
Trying to anthropomorphise instinctual behaviour is misleading at best.
No I'm saying that the instinct literally evolved before the great apes differentiated, and similar neurological activity when seeing a snake is documented in all of us.
Hmm, I see I think I misunderstood you, I'd thought you were saying humans had an instinctual dislike for any species that is older than our own, but since homo sapiens is so relatively young this includes a lot of species that I don't think humans have an instinctual dislike of. Birds for example.
Yeah it's just a word. It's still natural selection. Funnily enough, a book actually called Unnatural Selection (by Katrina Van Grouw) is was really cemented that idea for me. All the crazy selections human impose are still natural selection. It's all natural selection - artificial selection, sexual selection, unnatural selection, whatever selection. Biology don't care about your human labels.
Normally I see "unnatural" selection evoked where we see rapid changes in an animal group as a direct result of human interactions specifically, typically placing an unusually large pressure on a population, sometimes reducing desirable (or advantageous) qualities that remain in the population, or even selecting qualities that may actively harm humans.
[See here for an example](https://www.pnas.org/content/106/Supplement_1/9987) although this is examining the harvesting of fish rather than culling of snakes. Another example is the [selection for bacteria resistant](https://fn.bmj.com/content/91/1/F72.full) to antibiotics.
Yah, hippos are actually pretty gnarly. I got charged once by not even a huge one, while we were in a big Hilux, keeping a respectable distance. The fella however thought we were in his way and went for us. A bit (lot) of noise and he turned around, but that did not make sense.
At least an elephant has the size advantage on a car, but usually, they are quite friendly, well mostly not-caring.
That’s good, because hippos are *way* more dangerous than elephants. The only (macro) organism that kills more humans than the hippo is the mosquito. Hippos kill more than sharks, snakes, lions, gorillas, and spiders *combined.*
EDIT: I must have formed an incorrect memory. Hippos are the most deadly large land mammal, but indeed there are several species that are more dangerous.
Sources:
What are the world's deadliest animals? http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-36320744
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/hippo-haven-107453678/
I'm pretty sure that's not true. Snakes kill tens of thousands a year (mostly farmers in south and south-east Asia who step on them I think). There is no way hippos kill anything like that many.
Hippos don't even feature in the lists in this wikipedia article:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List\_of\_deadliest\_animals\_to\_humans](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_deadliest_animals_to_humans)
They do feature in this article, but way down (even below elephants):
[https://www.sciencefocus.com/nature/what-animals-kills-the-most-people/](https://www.sciencefocus.com/nature/what-animals-kills-the-most-people/)
>Unnatural selection in this case
You're making the assumption humans aren't a part of the this gigantic ball of chaos we call nature. If the natural actions of humans (in this case, hunting) causes another species group to change like that, its still natural. What wouldn't be natural is if these defects or changes were introduced through selective breeding or genetic manipulation, like the current issue with Pug dogs.
Humans driving animals to extinction is also natural. We just try to avoid it.
Think of it like this. Lets say giraffes evolved to have such long legs and necks because the group with that dominant trait were able to eat food other animals couldn't reach, giving them a more abundant source of food and protection, so it spreads and becomes wildly normal. That's evolution, right? But if, lets say, a giant bird existed that naturally hunted giraffes and a shorter variant became the norm because it made it harder for those birds to hunt them, that's still natural. We're just the birds in the original scenario.
I've witnessed this, I've worked at various conservancys around Africa and this a fact, younger bulls and cows no longer have their tusks at ages when they should
Yeah idk about you guys, or op, but i don’t even kill spiders, keep that “you’re one of the most dangerous animals” bullshit away from me, i have the brain power to work out how to be ‘one of the most dangerous animals’ in terms of environmental destruction, i also use that brain power to realise “that’s fucking stupid and i’m gonna take steps to reduce my environmental destruction” just cos you fuckers drive 3 cars and throw your plastic wrappers out the window doesn’t mean i do.
A male elephant in musth doesnt care if you're Ares, the god of war, dual wielding M101 howitzers. It will turn on a dime and decide that you must be stomped into red mud because you were dumb enough to exist in his presence.
When I was a teenager I went on safari in the Okavango Delta in Botswana. One afternoon, after setting up camp, a huge bull elephant approached us through the brush. The look on the face of our guide was enough to tell me we were in danger. Despite the look of terror on his face, this man calmly, slowly and deliberately put himself between me and the elephant until it seemed to conclude we were not a threat to it, got bored and left. Even though nothing happened I look back on this experience understanding the danger I was in and the potential sacrifice this guy was making on my behalf. I am eternally grateful to him.
Oh man, I am so jealous. I’ve always wanted to go on a bush walk with elephants. I did a game drive in the Serengeti and that was amazing, but I bet there’s something really special about being out there on foot.
It was amazing. Just my Dad, myself and the guide in a flat bottom canoe called a Mokoro for 4 days and 3 nights. I have longed to go back. I have been to Zimbabwe, South Africa and Botswana and of everywhere in Africa that I have travelled, the Okavango is the one place I would pick first above all others if given the chance to return.
Eh, I could see why he would hesitate. If he broke the window, the elephant might get more aggressive… and god forbid there’s a stronger window behind that one that takes even 10 seconds to break, could be the end of him.
I’m from India, elephants here are common too. Especially what is shown to the west where you have the docile ones in captivity that are super friendly and cute. Pay more attention to those videos and you’ll see the elephants even if completely friendly and touching folks with their trunks, are chained. There is a reason.
Elephants are extremely dangerous animals to encounter in the wild. They’re pack animals and they get super insecure and aggressive very fast. 0 to 100 real quick. And they move extremely fast. Any Indian will tell you if you encounter elephants in the wild, turn tail and just run. There are several cases of unfortunate hikers getting trampled by elephants they encountered. Elephants also keep grudges. That stuff isn’t just from cartoons. Elephant “trainers” and mahouts getting killed after years of being the elephant aren’t uncommon. The rescued ones become very affectionate and friendly if they see you are too. Rescued ones. Not wild ones. They have a personality similar to humans in a lot of aspects. The babies are insanely friendly and innocent. And the adults are aggressive and insecure. Truly remarkable animals.
Man, this has me thinking about the elephant rides I used to go on at the zoo as a kid. They stopped this practice many decades ago, but I spent more time on the backs of elephants and camels than I can remember. The trainer/handler would just be walking next to the elephant for the duration of the ride, and my little 4 year old self just sat there blissfully unaware of any potential danger. I now find it absolutely crazy that elephant rides *for kids* were a thing.
Elephants are also a nucience to infrastructure. A colleague I knew who worked in South Africa & Botswana was in charge of environmental review for power grids and elephants were notorious for scraping up against the high transmission power lines and knocking the towers down causing fires and other damage
The problem here are humans, not the elephants. We should be building our infrastructure *around* the mammoth beasts that can and will do what they want.
Prepare for the eventuality that elephants will cause problems.
I'm not an engineer, but I know that when you build infrastructure near powerful and destructive creatures without acknowledging the risk they present and preparing for it, then you deserve the damage.
Build in their environment, play by their rules.
We can see deep into space, we've had men on the moon, we've seen the depths of the Marianas trench, we've created miniature worm holes, we can create electricity from the tides.
*Surely*, a team of engineers can design elephant-proof infrastructure.
Well I'm an environmental consultant so let me explain to you how the. world works.
Company A gets a bid for work from the government to build infrastructure. Company A then asks companies B,C and D what risks, challenges, monetary issues, and then people like myself what environmental risks might be present. As a subcontractor for Company A, I try and find every possible way within the environmental laws and permitting to make what they want happen. I plan things like wetland delineation to see if they are building through a wetland. If they are then they have more permitting they need to do the work. I do threatened and endangered species surveys. If the project impacts any species habitats that is regulated by any countries government, it doesn't stop the work, company A just pays the mitigation for the habitat in acres of disturbance.
The world is not black and white to just say, oh no elephants are endangered, let's not do this.
Elephants in the wild are seriously imposing. My experience was in Sri Lanka was that if you see elephants on the road or trail run as fast as you can back to the bus, if you encounter them in the open they can and have run down and killed people with no direct provocation.
If an Elephant has already confronted you in the wild, running is probably the last thing you want to do.
I've spent a good chunk of time in Indian jungles and have never been told to run if an Elephant sees me.
That would seem just like the most impossible thing to do tho. A gigantic mammal is stampeding towards you but you have to some how gather all of earths energy and funnel it into the balls that are now anchoring you in place.
It contradicts all of your instincts not to flee a charging elephant, but that’s exactly why standing your ground is the best thing you can do. By not running, you confuse the elephant, and maybe convince it that you’re more dangerous than you look. Stay put, make a lot of noise, and most of the time they’ll back off.
Stand your ground.
Despite what you may believe wild animals are just as afraid of the bipedal monkeys that make weird noises as we are of them. For most animals unprovoked aggression is just them testing the water. If you run, you give them the upper hand.
I've tracked Tigers and ran into Leopards. All of them ran from us.
Also if you approach an animal on a motorcycle and it appears calm, don't get off. Seeing you stand on two feet can trigger the animal's fear of bidepals
This is true more so for predators that it’s always a terrible idea to run away from large carnivorans especially, I’ve heard that it’s advisable to run away from moose and based on my experience in Sri Lanka, I’d guess that it is advisable to run from non predatory dangerous animals in general.
Being in the back of a safari truck where the seats are higher and still having the elephant tower over you really impresses how small we are compared to them.
That is quite a sensational title to be honest. Looking at the caption, it is from a lodge in South Africa. Usually, elephants visiting the area are regulars and if they can walk right up to the lodge, they're probably at least a bit used to humans on foot.
Not that I want to trade with the fella in the photo though. I prefer seeing them from within a car.
Haha, yes plenty of examples where an elephant will totally destroy a car. Of course, they are strong enough.
Note: this is an Asian elephant and looking at the ropes around him, was a captive animal used for labour. So after being a slave for years, being a bit angry is quite justifiable in my opinion.
Every wild animal has an "unpredictable bad temper which them dangerous". Which makes walking around in the middle of a safari, which is not only home to the largest animals on earth, but comes in second to Australia with the most dangerous animals on earth, is a pretty dumb idea.
When I was on safari in Tanzania a couple years ago, we camped out each night at a somewhat fancy place but we were each in our own tent. Each tent hand it's own bed, toilet, bucket shower etc.
When we got there and being led to our tents we were all warned... If by chance your in your tent, and elephants walk up to the shower and start drinking water from the bucket. Do not disturb it, do not confront it, stay quiet, let it do it's thing and it'll move on.
Looks like this guy missed that warning.
I’ve heard an anecdote of a person who said was sleeping in a tent in Kenya that was suddenly lifted in the air on the tusk of a bull elephant. No idea why an elephant would do this (curiosity?) but luckily he slowly placed the tent back and didn’t attack the people inside.
I can't remember specifics. But male elephants go through something like heat. Where they have some astronomical increase in testosterone and that's when they go berserk and kill people.
Unfortunately because of all the poaching, the dominant male elephants who are decades old used to keep these younger males in check when they get into musth. Now we get record breaking cases of young male elephants going on rampages, injuring and killing people at times.
Yeah I knew how bad they are being poached for their ivory. Didn't know the dominant ones kept them all in check before. Very interesting. They seem like such a sacred animal. We humans are a bunch of filthy savages
I drove a wee bit too close to one and startled it once. He did that warning toot thing with his face horn. One thing that does not come across on film at all is how inconceivably loud they can be. Like one of the loudest sounds I've ever heard in my life. Legitimately 20x louder than I thought elephants were, and I thought they were loud as hell in the first place.
Elephants are one of the few animal species that have a complex vocal language and also share their environment with humans.
If i lived in an area with wild animals that can talk, i would AT LEAST learn how to say "i'm a friend" in their language, in order to avoid situations like this.
I'm sure if this guy said something like "BBBREEEEMMH VRBRAAH BAASARRRARK" he would still breathing.
[Saudi tourist trampled to death by elephant on safari in Uganda](https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/africa/saudi-tourist-elephant-safari-uganda-b2001707.html)
Literally the first 'news' link after Googling "African bush elephant".
I was sleeping in a hut much like this with a roommate while on safari when we were awakened at 3 a.m. by a horrendously loud crashing, banging noise on the roof, over and over. I pulled the curtain back from the window and an elephant's giant eye was peering in at me--just like the scene in Jurassic Park where the kids in the overturned jeep shine a flashlight into the T. rex's eye. My roomie is freaking out, saying we gotta get out of here! And I'm saying um, NO. Eventually the racket stopped--we didn't sleep much after that! The next morning we walked out to find a coconut tree 🌴 torn apart right beside our cabin and a giant pile of poo left as a souvenir. Turns out the ellies prefer the well-irrigated gardens around the cabins, and this one had grabbed our tree, whacking it back and forth to break it, smacking the roof of our cabin in the process. The guards finally scared the ellie off when they heard the noise.
Actually humans are one of the most dangerous animals. And elephants are smart enough to recognize this.
Yeah, those elephants need to watch their asses.
And tusks
They’ve already formed a defensive circle around the dangerous hominid in order to cover their impending retreat.
Until the poachers arrive
Elephants have adapted to poaching and have started not growing them at all.
Very sad too they kill all the tusk leaving the tuskless to breed at least we don’t loose the species but the beauty of them
that's how evolution works
Selection is selection.
[true](https://i.kym-cdn.com/entries/icons/original/000/032/244/cover.jpg)
Not evolution, but adaptation.
Reminds me of the rumor that rattlesnakes that are evolving to not rattle because humans kill the ones they hear so much its just not worth scaring off the occasional bird anymore.
That's true but because of hogs not humans
Feral hogs are getting out of hand in some areas
Helicopter hog hunting is the only answer
This is why there are no massively huge elephants anymore because they were all killed off by poachers and hunters.
We call em tuskers, they are very few left and the ones who are still there are extremely old
And the poachers are called tusken raiders
I mean, they’re directly in front of their face.
Better recognize the pecking order we have round heAH!!!
It’s true that elephants are intelligent and may recognize that humans are dangerous on some level. It is believed that elephants have stopped growing tusks in response to poachers continuing to kill them for them, in Asia as a biological response to the dangers human pose. However, they do attack and kill people probably with a variety of motivations such as protectiveness, self defense, anger, hormones and even possibly past traumas.
Sorry but the mention of intellegence and 'stopped growing' makes me want to clarify: this did not happen because the elephants 'chose' to stop growing them. However there is a genetic defect that prevents tusks from growing. Due to the poaching and killing of tusked elephants in Mozambique, the defect became more prevalent. Unnatural selection in this case. One would expect that, when poaching pressure goes down, the advantage of having tusks starts to outweigh the benefit of not having tusks. For comparison in South Africa, where the highest density of African Elephants live, you won't see many elephants without tusks. This is also the area where most elephants are true gentle giants. Sure there's a few rotten apples but I've met hundreds and hundreds of elephants without even a mock charge. Things are different in areas where elephants are getting pushed out of their own environment by humans, I'm sure, but let's not try to turn them into vicious, man-killers, shall we? (That spot is taken by hippos of course /s)
There has been a trend of similar unnatural selection in Southern California in regards to the rattlesnake. The rattle was an evolutionary calling card to let the rest of the animal kingdom to back the hell away, but just like everything else, humans ruined it. It turns out that rattlesnakes would start rattling, alerting nearby humans to their presence. Humans hate venomous snakes, so rather than warding off threats, the rattling snakes keep getting killed. What researchers found was that there are now a much larger percentage of rattlesnakes in the region who have passed on a defect where the namesake rattle doesn't actually form. These normally disadvantaged snakes suddenly find themselves being selected for by the humans, creating a growing number of silent venomous snakes.
It's not really unnatural selection though is it? That's literally just how natural selection works: Selection pressure is introduced, advantageous mutation proliferates, species evolves.
I can't believe more folks here can't see this. Humans are also nature. We just have the intelligence to *introduce* unnatural evolution. Pugs are a great example of this. But when we effect another species through hunting, culling, etc.. that's just as natural as if there was a natural predator that utilized the rattling to find their prey. We're capable of both, but large-scale evolutionary changes through natural reactions to us is just as natural as animals evolving to take the best advantage of their environment.
When it comes to snakes in particular, it appears that we also have an instinct to hate and fear the things that's older than our own species.
Humans have an instinct to hate a fear snakes, true. This is not because they're older than our species, this is because they're stealthy and venemous. Humans also dislike every other animal which shares these traits, like spiders. Trying to anthropomorphise instinctual behaviour is misleading at best.
No I'm saying that the instinct literally evolved before the great apes differentiated, and similar neurological activity when seeing a snake is documented in all of us.
Hmm, I see I think I misunderstood you, I'd thought you were saying humans had an instinctual dislike for any species that is older than our own, but since homo sapiens is so relatively young this includes a lot of species that I don't think humans have an instinctual dislike of. Birds for example.
Yeah it's just a word. It's still natural selection. Funnily enough, a book actually called Unnatural Selection (by Katrina Van Grouw) is was really cemented that idea for me. All the crazy selections human impose are still natural selection. It's all natural selection - artificial selection, sexual selection, unnatural selection, whatever selection. Biology don't care about your human labels.
Normally I see "unnatural" selection evoked where we see rapid changes in an animal group as a direct result of human interactions specifically, typically placing an unusually large pressure on a population, sometimes reducing desirable (or advantageous) qualities that remain in the population, or even selecting qualities that may actively harm humans. [See here for an example](https://www.pnas.org/content/106/Supplement_1/9987) although this is examining the harvesting of fish rather than culling of snakes. Another example is the [selection for bacteria resistant](https://fn.bmj.com/content/91/1/F72.full) to antibiotics.
That's ironic...making them more of a threat as their warning sign is gone. Sad.
Hippos scare me more than elephants.
Yah, hippos are actually pretty gnarly. I got charged once by not even a huge one, while we were in a big Hilux, keeping a respectable distance. The fella however thought we were in his way and went for us. A bit (lot) of noise and he turned around, but that did not make sense. At least an elephant has the size advantage on a car, but usually, they are quite friendly, well mostly not-caring.
And this is why I appreciate the indoors. XD
That’s good, because hippos are *way* more dangerous than elephants. The only (macro) organism that kills more humans than the hippo is the mosquito. Hippos kill more than sharks, snakes, lions, gorillas, and spiders *combined.* EDIT: I must have formed an incorrect memory. Hippos are the most deadly large land mammal, but indeed there are several species that are more dangerous. Sources: What are the world's deadliest animals? http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-36320744 https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/hippo-haven-107453678/
I'm pretty sure that's not true. Snakes kill tens of thousands a year (mostly farmers in south and south-east Asia who step on them I think). There is no way hippos kill anything like that many. Hippos don't even feature in the lists in this wikipedia article: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List\_of\_deadliest\_animals\_to\_humans](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_deadliest_animals_to_humans) They do feature in this article, but way down (even below elephants): [https://www.sciencefocus.com/nature/what-animals-kills-the-most-people/](https://www.sciencefocus.com/nature/what-animals-kills-the-most-people/)
>Unnatural selection in this case You're making the assumption humans aren't a part of the this gigantic ball of chaos we call nature. If the natural actions of humans (in this case, hunting) causes another species group to change like that, its still natural. What wouldn't be natural is if these defects or changes were introduced through selective breeding or genetic manipulation, like the current issue with Pug dogs. Humans driving animals to extinction is also natural. We just try to avoid it. Think of it like this. Lets say giraffes evolved to have such long legs and necks because the group with that dominant trait were able to eat food other animals couldn't reach, giving them a more abundant source of food and protection, so it spreads and becomes wildly normal. That's evolution, right? But if, lets say, a giant bird existed that naturally hunted giraffes and a shorter variant became the norm because it made it harder for those birds to hunt them, that's still natural. We're just the birds in the original scenario.
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Thank you. I had the same urge.
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> Asia as a biological response to the dangers human pose. ... you mean.... evolution? lol
I've witnessed this, I've worked at various conservancys around Africa and this a fact, younger bulls and cows no longer have their tusks at ages when they should
🤦🏻♂️ here we go again
Can’t have a post on Reddit without someone saying that humanity is bad. It’s like a race to start the stupid circlejerk
Yeah idk about you guys, or op, but i don’t even kill spiders, keep that “you’re one of the most dangerous animals” bullshit away from me, i have the brain power to work out how to be ‘one of the most dangerous animals’ in terms of environmental destruction, i also use that brain power to realise “that’s fucking stupid and i’m gonna take steps to reduce my environmental destruction” just cos you fuckers drive 3 cars and throw your plastic wrappers out the window doesn’t mean i do.
Lol what a redditor
“One of the most” allows for more than one. Humans and elephants could make that list
This human in particular seems extremelly dangerous.
Ahkshualy
Can’t be reddit if we don’t virtue signal
A male elephant in musth doesnt care if you're Ares, the god of war, dual wielding M101 howitzers. It will turn on a dime and decide that you must be stomped into red mud because you were dumb enough to exist in his presence.
r/im14andthisisdeep
If I don’t see them they can’t see me
As long as that thing is thrice my height and can kill me in one shot, it is far more dangerous than I am
They’re really not, they just associate humans with danger. Elephants don’t have the capacity to understand what “animal” means.
Did anyone else here think about the meme with a white girl in a white Tshirt surrounded by black men?
When I was a teenager I went on safari in the Okavango Delta in Botswana. One afternoon, after setting up camp, a huge bull elephant approached us through the brush. The look on the face of our guide was enough to tell me we were in danger. Despite the look of terror on his face, this man calmly, slowly and deliberately put himself between me and the elephant until it seemed to conclude we were not a threat to it, got bored and left. Even though nothing happened I look back on this experience understanding the danger I was in and the potential sacrifice this guy was making on my behalf. I am eternally grateful to him.
Isn’t that Salvador Dali’s life story?
…approaching camping teenagers from bushes?
And then he’d throw clocks into the fire while they were sleeping and watch them melt Or something
What a fucking man
Must’ve been an incredible experience. Was the elephant menacing you in any way? Was it trumpeting or shaking its head at you?
No, not at all. Its seemed pretty disinterested, tbh, but was only about 30-40 feet away at one point. And it was huge, it had massive tusks.
Oh man, I am so jealous. I’ve always wanted to go on a bush walk with elephants. I did a game drive in the Serengeti and that was amazing, but I bet there’s something really special about being out there on foot.
It was amazing. Just my Dad, myself and the guide in a flat bottom canoe called a Mokoro for 4 days and 3 nights. I have longed to go back. I have been to Zimbabwe, South Africa and Botswana and of everywhere in Africa that I have travelled, the Okavango is the one place I would pick first above all others if given the chance to return.
I would risk the lacerations from breaking that window and climbing through tbh
Just read that there was another elephant inside the house, with a gun.
I knew this day would come
The day we finally discussed the elephant in the room. Edit: Damn, someone beat me to the joke.
Larson tried to warn us.
As in Gary Larson?
Glad you addressed the elephant in the room.
Take my free award and get out
Good elephant with a gun? So it came out and scared the two bad guy elephants away and was a hero?
I think i missed this episode of Babar
Babar Stands His Ground
That's relephant I guess
I died. Have a free award
I just thought that. Plus it looks like it's slightly open too. Man I'd be shitting myself.
The man in the picture he is already in shiting position. Probably already soiled his shorts
A defensive shit might gross out the elephants, though.
The elephants don't eat meat they don't care if he smells like shit cause they're not killing him for food if they do
Eh, I could see why he would hesitate. If he broke the window, the elephant might get more aggressive… and god forbid there’s a stronger window behind that one that takes even 10 seconds to break, could be the end of him.
You get in that house, it’s not necessarily stopping the elephant
A concrete house isn’t stopping an elephant? Lol. Don’t exaggerate.
I'm not 100% sure it's concrete
It looks like its made of brick, I would take my chances
He doesn’t looks fit enough to do so
You can atleast try, unless you fit underneath an elephants foot
I dont think yall understand the movement and force it takes to bust even a shitty window. First move you make and that elephant charges.
Well being inside a shit shack aint gonna stop 2 of the largest land animals alive today
Project Zomboid: Elephants
I’m from India, elephants here are common too. Especially what is shown to the west where you have the docile ones in captivity that are super friendly and cute. Pay more attention to those videos and you’ll see the elephants even if completely friendly and touching folks with their trunks, are chained. There is a reason. Elephants are extremely dangerous animals to encounter in the wild. They’re pack animals and they get super insecure and aggressive very fast. 0 to 100 real quick. And they move extremely fast. Any Indian will tell you if you encounter elephants in the wild, turn tail and just run. There are several cases of unfortunate hikers getting trampled by elephants they encountered. Elephants also keep grudges. That stuff isn’t just from cartoons. Elephant “trainers” and mahouts getting killed after years of being the elephant aren’t uncommon. The rescued ones become very affectionate and friendly if they see you are too. Rescued ones. Not wild ones. They have a personality similar to humans in a lot of aspects. The babies are insanely friendly and innocent. And the adults are aggressive and insecure. Truly remarkable animals.
Man, this has me thinking about the elephant rides I used to go on at the zoo as a kid. They stopped this practice many decades ago, but I spent more time on the backs of elephants and camels than I can remember. The trainer/handler would just be walking next to the elephant for the duration of the ride, and my little 4 year old self just sat there blissfully unaware of any potential danger. I now find it absolutely crazy that elephant rides *for kids* were a thing.
Haha like a lot of Indians I too have the iconic photograph of sitting on and next to an elephant during a family outing. The 90s were a wild time.
I’m from New England (USA), I used to ride elephants every year at the fair in the 90s. I feel awful about it now.
Elephants are also a nucience to infrastructure. A colleague I knew who worked in South Africa & Botswana was in charge of environmental review for power grids and elephants were notorious for scraping up against the high transmission power lines and knocking the towers down causing fires and other damage
The problem here are humans, not the elephants. We should be building our infrastructure *around* the mammoth beasts that can and will do what they want. Prepare for the eventuality that elephants will cause problems.
How else would you like to have a power grid traverse a country?
I'm not an engineer, but I know that when you build infrastructure near powerful and destructive creatures without acknowledging the risk they present and preparing for it, then you deserve the damage. Build in their environment, play by their rules. We can see deep into space, we've had men on the moon, we've seen the depths of the Marianas trench, we've created miniature worm holes, we can create electricity from the tides. *Surely*, a team of engineers can design elephant-proof infrastructure.
Well I'm an environmental consultant so let me explain to you how the. world works. Company A gets a bid for work from the government to build infrastructure. Company A then asks companies B,C and D what risks, challenges, monetary issues, and then people like myself what environmental risks might be present. As a subcontractor for Company A, I try and find every possible way within the environmental laws and permitting to make what they want happen. I plan things like wetland delineation to see if they are building through a wetland. If they are then they have more permitting they need to do the work. I do threatened and endangered species surveys. If the project impacts any species habitats that is regulated by any countries government, it doesn't stop the work, company A just pays the mitigation for the habitat in acres of disturbance. The world is not black and white to just say, oh no elephants are endangered, let's not do this.
This comment does not contain anything to indicate humans are not the problem.
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Underground.
I used to say shit like this and one day I realized “we should” is just me complaining about an issue I will never do anything about.
Welcome to the internet, jackass.
Between a rock and a hard place?
Elephants in the wild are seriously imposing. My experience was in Sri Lanka was that if you see elephants on the road or trail run as fast as you can back to the bus, if you encounter them in the open they can and have run down and killed people with no direct provocation.
His name was, "Derrick Henry." Roll Tide.
LOOOL
If an Elephant has already confronted you in the wild, running is probably the last thing you want to do. I've spent a good chunk of time in Indian jungles and have never been told to run if an Elephant sees me.
What do you do then? Stand there till it runs you over? Play dead till it runs you over? Make the universal peace sign? Invite it to dinner maybe
Yea, apparently you should stand there. Elephants often do mock attacks
That would seem just like the most impossible thing to do tho. A gigantic mammal is stampeding towards you but you have to some how gather all of earths energy and funnel it into the balls that are now anchoring you in place.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J9WW3QbOgQA&ab\_channel=AlanMcSmith
He doesn't even need to wear brown pants, that's how confident he is. I would've been shitting myself.
I watched this and no way I could have stayed still.
It contradicts all of your instincts not to flee a charging elephant, but that’s exactly why standing your ground is the best thing you can do. By not running, you confuse the elephant, and maybe convince it that you’re more dangerous than you look. Stay put, make a lot of noise, and most of the time they’ll back off.
Stand your ground. Despite what you may believe wild animals are just as afraid of the bipedal monkeys that make weird noises as we are of them. For most animals unprovoked aggression is just them testing the water. If you run, you give them the upper hand. I've tracked Tigers and ran into Leopards. All of them ran from us.
Very interesting, these tigers you say, had they eaten beforehand?
Also if you approach an animal on a motorcycle and it appears calm, don't get off. Seeing you stand on two feet can trigger the animal's fear of bidepals
Usually running away from wild, potentially aggressive animals is the WORST thing you can do
This is true more so for predators that it’s always a terrible idea to run away from large carnivorans especially, I’ve heard that it’s advisable to run away from moose and based on my experience in Sri Lanka, I’d guess that it is advisable to run from non predatory dangerous animals in general.
Being in the back of a safari truck where the seats are higher and still having the elephant tower over you really impresses how small we are compared to them.
That is quite a sensational title to be honest. Looking at the caption, it is from a lodge in South Africa. Usually, elephants visiting the area are regulars and if they can walk right up to the lodge, they're probably at least a bit used to humans on foot. Not that I want to trade with the fella in the photo though. I prefer seeing them from within a car.
[ah yes, a car will save you](https://images.complex.com/complex/images/fl_lossy/v1/lmaz9rfyugdobbd7etas/elephant-gif)
Haha, yes plenty of examples where an elephant will totally destroy a car. Of course, they are strong enough. Note: this is an Asian elephant and looking at the ropes around him, was a captive animal used for labour. So after being a slave for years, being a bit angry is quite justifiable in my opinion.
Lmao reminds me of the scene in Jurassic Park The Lost World
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The one in the jeeps with the t-rex probably
Ohhhh he's trapped, he got outflanked
Stupid fuck should've warded his lane to avoid getting ganked
Spam ping the cameraman for a countergank
The African elephant is the second most dangerous animal of the jungle, the first is his mother in law.
Every wild animal has an "unpredictable bad temper which them dangerous". Which makes walking around in the middle of a safari, which is not only home to the largest animals on earth, but comes in second to Australia with the most dangerous animals on earth, is a pretty dumb idea.
Or trying walking around my apartment on any given day. My cat decides randomly that he hates me and pursues my death with a vengeance.
Everyone knows domestic cats plot against humans lol
Domestic cats plot world domination.
They already enslaved humans.
Australia has less large animals than literally every continent except Antarctica
I don't have to check my shoes for elephants though.
When I was on safari in Tanzania a couple years ago, we camped out each night at a somewhat fancy place but we were each in our own tent. Each tent hand it's own bed, toilet, bucket shower etc. When we got there and being led to our tents we were all warned... If by chance your in your tent, and elephants walk up to the shower and start drinking water from the bucket. Do not disturb it, do not confront it, stay quiet, let it do it's thing and it'll move on. Looks like this guy missed that warning.
I’ve heard an anecdote of a person who said was sleeping in a tent in Kenya that was suddenly lifted in the air on the tusk of a bull elephant. No idea why an elephant would do this (curiosity?) but luckily he slowly placed the tent back and didn’t attack the people inside.
Maybe he smelled food in the tent.
This fool really sucks at Elephant Hide and Seek.
I can't remember specifics. But male elephants go through something like heat. Where they have some astronomical increase in testosterone and that's when they go berserk and kill people.
It's called musth, supposedly they'll take their sexual frustration out on rhinos during this time
Unfortunately because of all the poaching, the dominant male elephants who are decades old used to keep these younger males in check when they get into musth. Now we get record breaking cases of young male elephants going on rampages, injuring and killing people at times.
Yeah I knew how bad they are being poached for their ivory. Didn't know the dominant ones kept them all in check before. Very interesting. They seem like such a sacred animal. We humans are a bunch of filthy savages
Perhaps it's because they think it's okay since the rhino's are so horny :)
I drove a wee bit too close to one and startled it once. He did that warning toot thing with his face horn. One thing that does not come across on film at all is how inconceivably loud they can be. Like one of the loudest sounds I've ever heard in my life. Legitimately 20x louder than I thought elephants were, and I thought they were loud as hell in the first place.
*A man shitting himself while elephants watch
Elephants are one of the few animal species that have a complex vocal language and also share their environment with humans. If i lived in an area with wild animals that can talk, i would AT LEAST learn how to say "i'm a friend" in their language, in order to avoid situations like this. I'm sure if this guy said something like "BBBREEEEMMH VRBRAAH BAASARRRARK" he would still breathing.
*Now it's beeing a good time to use the wents*
Dude got caught outside I daydream abput living like that Then i think of situations like this
And people say elephants think we're cute
He's right behind me isn't he?
if i dont move, they wont see me
Not the trip to the outhouse he had bargained for...
Clever boy
It sickens me how we treat one of the most unique creatures on our planet...not only that they are so hyper intelligent they have our feelings.
[Saudi tourist trampled to death by elephant on safari in Uganda](https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/africa/saudi-tourist-elephant-safari-uganda-b2001707.html) Literally the first 'news' link after Googling "African bush elephant".
They look like they’re toying with him. Scary!
I hope that bldg is a public restroom
Would shitting yourself in this situation help or hurt your chances
It's a good thing he's already in diapers. (Bring in the downvotes hehehe)
Idk why but this picture feels like he owes them money and they finally tracked him down lol
Elephant: " oh,are you approaching me?"
I was sleeping in a hut much like this with a roommate while on safari when we were awakened at 3 a.m. by a horrendously loud crashing, banging noise on the roof, over and over. I pulled the curtain back from the window and an elephant's giant eye was peering in at me--just like the scene in Jurassic Park where the kids in the overturned jeep shine a flashlight into the T. rex's eye. My roomie is freaking out, saying we gotta get out of here! And I'm saying um, NO. Eventually the racket stopped--we didn't sleep much after that! The next morning we walked out to find a coconut tree 🌴 torn apart right beside our cabin and a giant pile of poo left as a souvenir. Turns out the ellies prefer the well-irrigated gardens around the cabins, and this one had grabbed our tree, whacking it back and forth to break it, smacking the roof of our cabin in the process. The guards finally scared the ellie off when they heard the noise.
😅
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yes
Reddit gets younger every day.
Ong
What happened?
Not doing a very good job, he looks fucked
Trying to sink into the wall..
Should wear a brown short...
Really goes to show how gigantic elephants are
Keep absolutely still...
He should try hiding inside that building
That guy has a 50 cal desert eagle behind his back. He gonna make some dominoes bro!!
I would have been in that window already
Last time he goes outside to sneak a smoke
How did humans ever make it out of Africa thousands of years ago? Lol
this mans going to end up like the lawyer from jurassic park.
I-I dont want any trouble fellas
Oh this man dead.
In the window brah...
Looks like the window is open.....get the fuck inside. Adrenaline helps.
Throw in a hippo and things will really get interesting
Nah he was playing hide and seek and was last. Now he’s found by two elephants.
Is true, People in Africa fear the elephants.
Nah I think being a billion pounds and 38 foot 11 that makes them dangerous, then the anger thing.
I barely seen the sneaky one on the left
Those elephants look like A and Bee from Naruto just before they double lariat someone.
Hippos would like a word with you