Runaway Elephant Shot 200 Times

Animal-rights activists were horrified Tuesday at the death of a logging elephant that was shot 200 times after killing his handlers days earlier.

The elephant suffered for two days before he died.

“It’s extremely sad,” said Soraida Salwala, founder of the Friends of the Asian Elephant Foundation. “It’s like shooting up a water tank and just waiting for the water to run out.”

Soraida said the 40-year-old male elephant either went mad or simply revolted against stress from overwork when he trampled two handlers to death in mid-April and escaped into a forest in Prae province.

Hunters found the elephant Saturday. It had taken up with a female and refused to let them approach. The hunters fired 200 bullets into the elephant’s legs to bring him down, but he did not die until Monday.

Newspapers showed pictures of the dying animal on the forest floor, with villagers crowded around and the female circling the corpse, trumpeting mournfully.