In early April of 2024, an elderly American tourist was visiting a national park in Zambia, Africa. There, a small group (including the female victim) was attacked by an aggressive bull elephant. Reports say the road was blocked by vegetation so the vehicle was not able to pull away; the elephant had charged and tipped the vehicle several times, rolling it over and crushing the group inside.

Some experts believe one possible reason for the continuous encounters with elephants might result from climate change. Climate changes can destroy food sources, and limit resources which often causes elephants to leave their wild home in search for more food. Which then results with them pushing into and populating more human-populated areas and land spaces. This will cause more possible negative encounters between the elephants passing by, and the human residents as well as the tourists of that area. The most reasonable explanation for the recent attack is exclusively because people are getting too close and provoking defensive behaviors in the elephants, which in this case led to injury and death of the onlookers.

Elephants play a crucial role in the ecosystem; by provoking, and threatening them and their habitat, we could end up wiping their whole species out completely.