A Spanish tourist died this Friday on the island of Yao Yai, in the southwest of Thailand, due to an incident with an elephant. He was giving it a bath in a pachyderm center when, as he passed in front of the animal, he stuck a fang into it, according to police and center sources.
The Yao Yai police station has explained to EFE that a person of Spanish nationality has died after an incident with an elephant, without specifying the woman’s age. The information was confirmed by a worker at the ‘Koh Yao Elephant Care’ center, who explained to EFE that the tourist was bathing the elephant when she passed in front of the animal and it stuck a tusk into her, causing injuries from which she later died.
Washing elephants, or bathing with them, are popular activities in some recreation centers in Thailand, where the pachyderms also participate in shows for tourists. Most incidents with elephants tend to occur with wild specimens, which sometimes cross into areas inhabited by people, due to loss of natural habitat.
39 deaths from elephant attacks in 2024
In the last 12 years, there have been 240 deaths due to attacks by wild elephants, including 39 fatalities in 2024, according to data from the Department of National Parks cited by The Nation newspaper.
Thailand’s Department of National Parks estimates that more than 4,000 wild elephants live in Thailand’s sanctuaries, national parks and nature reserves, a growing population although still far below the 300,000 pachyderms that populated the country more than a century ago. It is also estimated that there is a similar population of domestic elephants in the country, most of them used in shows for tourists.
In the past, thousands of elephants were used in the logging industry, but when logging was prohibited in 1989, the pachyderms began to be exhibited in the streets to beg for alms – something that is no longer observed in the country – and in entertainment centers.
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