Before we begin here we need to stress that this yarn doesn’t have a particularly happy or triumphant ending to it, and it still contains some fairly horrific details of hunting and animal cruelty. If that kinda thing turns your stomach a little too much, you might wanna back out now.
A 51-year-old professional big game hunter was reportedly crushed to death by the elephant he was hunting in Zimbabwe on Friday, according to a report from South African news outlet News24.
Theunis Botha owned and operated a professional hunting company that took rich clients into the African wilds to hunt and kill large wild animals. Primarily, the company targeted leopards and lions and used specially trained hunting hounds to help track and bring down the animals.
On Friday Botha was leading a hunt through the Gwai region of the country, when the group encountered a herd of mating elephants.
Three elephants cows reportedly stormed the hunting group, leading Botha to shoot at them. A fourth cow then attacked the pack from the side, lifting Botha into the air with her trunk. Another member of the hunting party fatally shot the cow, which then fell on top of Botha, crushing him to death.
Botha was known to frequently travel to the US to court and recruit wealthy clients for his hunting trips in Zimbabwe, and was a specialist in “Monteira hunts‘; large packs of dogs are used to herd deer and boar towards hunters, who then open fire on the animals.
Adult African elephants are classified as having no natural predators, largely due to their size. The biggest threat to their survival in the wild remains human hunters and poachers.
Source: News24.
Photo: Frank Bienewald/Getty.
