Elephant protection Europe calls the ‘ protected contact when dealing with elephants Dresden, April 2010: the Petra S. keeper is attacked by a 4 year old elephant and critically wounding. Magdeburg, September 2011: elephant cow Burma, who has lived for 38 years at the Zoo, injured a zookeeper. Augsburg, October 2011: Elephant s expresses an experienced zookeeper on a wall and hurt him so badly that he’s for weeks in the hospital. Believed to be the person in charge of the affected zoos, it is unfortunate isolated cases, unpredictable and therefore unavoidable. But the truth is otherwise: there are only the latest German incidents in a series of severe and very severe accidents involving elephants in zoos all over the world, every year calling for wounded and dead.
So 12 nurses; died alone since the year 2000 in European and American zoos There were more attacks with fatal outcome in circuses in Australia, the United States and several Asian countries. Total 234 incidents with 22 dead are in zoos in the United States and 204 injured; in Germany at least 92 incidents with 12 dead and 51 injured. 27 German zoos, which currently hold elephants, had at least one, often several serious incidents with elephants with 15 more than half since 1990. And the number of unreported cases is high. In addition, an elephant who once lost the respect for people, is often repeatedly aggressive. The heavy attack is often at the end of a whole series of incidents that have been trivialized, concealed and covered up. Also in the Zoo of Augsburg, Dresden, Magdeburg, no one can say of the danger by elephants completely unprepared to be been surprised, because in all three zoos already serious incidents have occurred. In all cases, the concerned elephant in an other Zoo had to move to. But the problem doesn’t change, as long as the system is not changed: the next aggressive elephant is determined.