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02-29-2016, 07:59 AM
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 ✝Mudderator from Hell✝ Poster Rank:10 e-mail Join Date: Oct 2006 Posts: 95,074
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Angry Elephant Attack, Damaging 27 Vehicles in India
An elephant has lashed out at a religious festival in India and raised concerns about its welfare after footage of the incident went viral. The Thalappoli festival features a music-filled procession headed by richly caparisoned elephants around this time every year. One of the elephants, named Devidasan, was taking part in the event at the Bhagavathi Temple in the south Indian state of Kerala when things went awry on Thursday. During the procession, Devidasan went on a rampage and started picking up cars, scooters, tuktuks and vans with his trunk and destroying them. The clearly distressed animal threw several of the vehicles into the air multiple times before smashing them on the ground as panicked onlookers fled the area. Two mahouts (elephant trainers) were on the back of the animal throughout the ordeal trying to control him. Nobody was injured. It reportedly took several hours to finally bring Devidasan under control. It has been reported the elephant may have been suffering from a case of “musth” — a testosterone-fuelled rage that periodically besets male elephants. The incident comes just weeks after another elephant was caught on camera on a similar rampage in East India. The wild animal ran amok through a town, trampling cars and motorbikes as crowds of people gathered to watch from balconies and roof tops. Elephants are increasingly coming into contact with people in India, as the human population of 1.25 billion soars and cities and towns grow at the expense of jungles and other elephant habitats. Up to 300 people are killed by elephants in the country each year. On Wednesday, another wild elephant trampled a farmer to death in the southern state of Tamil Nadu. The farmer had been sleeping in his paddy field when the elephant appeared. India’s elephants are also threatened by speeding trains and illegal poachers looking for ivory to sell on the black market. Today, there are about 30,000 elephants across the country, restricted to about 15 per cent of their historic habitat, according to the environment ministry. Worldwide, elephants have disappeared from some 95 per cent of their historical range, which once stretched from the shores of the Mediterranean to the Yellow River in northern China. |
