Tuesday, February 22, 2011

Don't mess with Dumbo!

South Africa's Die Beeld (The Mirror) newspaper has an astonishing series of photographs of an elephant tipping a car onto its roof. The pictures were taken in the Pilanesberg Game Reserve.







A paraphrase (ICEL 1973 translation?) of the text of the article says something along the lines of:

A man from Centurion watched helplessly as an elephant tipped over an elderly couple's vehicle in Pilanesberg on Friday.

Mr. Van Wyk and 3 other cars were following an elephant bull that was calmly walking down the road.

Van Wyk was taking photos until the elephant started walking straight to his vehicle flapping his ears.

That's when he decided to rather get away.

"I slowly started reversing when another car came past me. It was an elderly couple and I tried to tell them that there was an unhappy elephant in the road.", Van Wyk said.

The couple passed him and parked next to the road. "I suspect they were trying to get out of his way."

Moments later the elephant started rubbing himself against the car. He then pushed his tusks in under the car and tipped it over.

The woman was only slightly injured, but they both suffered severe shock.