Previously, we covered how an elephant snapped and killed a tourist while she was bathing it at an elephant sanctuary. Now, an expert is giving a grave warning to potential visitors.
22-year-old Blanca Ojanguren García died after the elephant struck and killed her while she was bathing the animal. There were 18 other people in the room, but no one else was injured. Following the incident, Duncan McNair, the CEO of London-based charity Save the Asian Elephants, raised concerns about elephant sanctuaries. He spoke with the New York Post about the sanctuaries.
"'Sanctuary,' a bit like 'havens' and 'orphanages,' is a very nasty term that is usually devoid of meaning or certainly devoid of accuracy," McNair said. "The vast majority of sanctuaries in Thailand, Sri Lanka, India, Vietnam, and Cambodia ... are not ethical. They are brutal, and they do it all for money."
Elephant Attack
McNair theorizes that the animal that killed Garcìa may have just been angry with its living conditions. The tourist was just an unfortunate causality of its frustrations.
"[The trunk] is an extraordinarily diverse and durable organ that is multipurpose," McNair explained. "An elephant doesn't randomly lash around or swing around with its trunk. ... It's wholly unlikely that this was an accident. So why did it happen? Well, of course, because the elephant, which was like pretty much all elephants in captivity for commercial exploitation, was being kept in a completely unnatural state, in extreme stress."
It's important to remember that elephants are wild creatures. You probably shouldn't be rubbing elbows with one.
"Elephants are wild animals. ... They are kept in captivity, having been brutalized into submission," McNair explained. "But that doesn't mean they're tamed. It simply means that they're terrified for spans of time. If they see their chance, or if they're overstressed, they will attack and kill."
Meanwhile, the animal advocate explains that he wants to promote ethical animal tourism. That's why he is sounding the alarm.
"[We want] to try to steer the market of animal tourism from brutal to ethical," McNair explained. "That's the real intention, not to close down travel companies, nothing like that. It's to help the animals and to help people who want to make money out of animal tourism. ... That's fine, but be ethical about it."