Botswana: Elephant Capsizes Canoes Carrying British Tourists in Okavango Delta
MAUN, BOTSWANA – An elephant capsized canoes carrying British tourists in Botswana’s Okavango Delta, narrowly avoiding fatalities, according to reports. The incident occurred on channels of the Delta outside the boundary of the protected wildlife area, near a village popular with tourists taking excursions with local guides in conventional makoro canoes.
The elephant,believed to be protecting its young,charged at least three canoes,flipping one and trampling another. Witnesses stated the guides “misjudged how close they coudl take the tourists safely and made a potentially fatal mistake.” One woman had a particularly close call,nearly drowning before the elephant ceased its attack. ”They had a very lucky escape indeed because all four could just have easily been killed by that angry bull,” a source said.”The woman was lucky not (to) have been gored, but if it had held her down for another few seconds, it would probably have drowned her, so she can praise the Lord he didn’t.”
Makoro excursions, marketed as a serene way to explore the Delta, involve slow-moving canoes gliding through papyrus channels, offering close encounters with wildlife including elephants, hippos, birds, buck, and crocodiles.
This incident follows a similar event earlier this year where a female elephant rammed a motorboat carrying British tourists in the same region, though that boat did not capsize. in July, two female tourists-one from the UK and one from New Zealand-were killed by a charging female elephant with a calf while on safari in Zambia.
The recent incident coincides with Botswana’s peak safari season, when the Okavango Delta is in full flood, transforming the desert into a vast inland oasis. Kevin Leo Smith, a former safari operator in the Delta, noted that the presence of multiple boats may have provoked the elephant. “Ideally there should not be more than one boat in a group as having so many together can be seen by elephants as threatening. A single boat might have kept that elephant relaxed,” Smith said. “Once the problem starts,it quickly becomes chaos and I don’t think I can pass any criticism about what happened after that. it was the elephant that gave up the attack and the visitors survived. It could have turned out very differently.”
