Elephant Bathing Incident: Spanish Tourist Dies After Being Gored by Tusk in Thailand

A Spanish tourist died after being attacked by an elephant at an elephant experience tourist facility in Thailand. On the 6th (local time), the Bangkok Post reported that on the 3rd, a 22-year-old Spanish tourist was stabbed by an elephant's tusk while participating in an elephant washing experience at the 'Koh Yao Elephant Sanctuary' in Phang Nga Province, southern Thailand, and was taken to the hospital but died.

The elephants at the Koyao Elephant Conservation Center, an elephant experience tourist facility in Phang Nga Province, southern Thailand. Koyao Elephant Conservation Center SNS

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Washing elephants is a popular tourist activity in Thailand. Facilities operating elephant tourism products claim to show elephants as they are and provide interactions with elephants in a "responsible and ethical manner." They also emphasize that they do not control elephants or use hooks. However, the animal protection organization World Animal Protection (WAP) estimates that some facilities train elephants cruelly by stabbing them with sharp hooks, and that 2,798 elephants are confined in tourist facilities nationwide in Thailand. Experts pointed out that the elephant involved in the incident was likely stressed due to the pressure of interacting with tourists in an unnatural environment.

Meanwhile, cases of people being injured or killed by wild elephant attacks are also frequent in Thailand. According to the Department of National Parks, Wildlife and Plant Conservation of Thailand, since 2012, at least 240 people have died and 208 have been injured due to wild elephant attacks. Last year, 39 people died from elephant attacks. On the 10th of last month, a woman in her 40s was killed by an elephant searching for food while walking in Phu Kradueng National Park, Loei Province, northern Thailand.

As accidents caused by wild elephants have become frequent, the Thai government began a pilot program this month to administer contraceptive injections to elephants in the eastern border forest areas to control the elephant population. The number of wild elephants in Thailand is at least 4,000 and continues to increase. It is also known that as the natural habitats of wild elephants disappear, cases of elephants invading human-inhabited areas have been occurring frequently.

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