Summary
Blanca Ojanguren, a 22-year-old Spanish tourist, was fatally attacked by an elephant at the Koh Yao Elephant Care sanctuary in Thailand while bathing the animal.
She was struck by its tusk, resulting in fatal injuries.
This tragedy highlights the risks of popular recreational activities involving elephants in Thailand.
It follows a recent fatal attack by a wild elephant on a Thai woman and adds to the 39 elephant-related deaths reported in 2024.
I did as a kid, but in the US. Trying to remember if it was at the zoo or Marine World (now 6 flags Discovery Kingdom). It’s kinda wild in hindsight that it was a thing in the states. Just from a litigious standpoint, that’s gotta be super dangerous, and I was a kid on a field trip. I know for a fact my parents didn’t sign a waiver because they weren’t there. We also did tug o war with the elephant. Shocker, the elephant kicked our asses.
Tug of war was banned from the Olympics because it’s pretty dangerous (not against elephants, it was humans against humans).