After trampling its handler to death during a trek in Thailand, an elephant in a state of aggressive sexual excitement ran off with two Russian tourists – a mother and her 9-year-old daughter – still clinging to its back.
The Associated Press reported police Lt. Col. Narong Laksanawimol as saying rescue teams tracked down the elephant about 1.8 miles away and tranquilized it to rescue the tourists clinging to its back.
"It took almost three hours for the elephant to calm down completely. We had to tie it to a tree," Narong said by telephone.
He said the animal began attacking the 60-year-old handler about 15 minutes after the start of what was supposed to be a scenic ride for the tourists near a waterfall in the city of Phang Nga. The handler's crushed body was found in a creek.
Laksanawimol said the male elephant had never attacked anyone since it began working for a tourist company two years ago.
He said the elephant was in musth,
associated with the rutting season, when there is
a large rise in reproductive hormones in male elephants.
Related Stories:
© 2026 Newsmax. All rights reserved.