Posted on 01/24/2014 7:36:26 PM PST by kingattax
The young American woman trampled to death by elephants in Thailand was a "fearless" outdoor researcher who knew how to handle dangerous animals, her family said Friday.
Lily Glidden's body was found in a forest five days after she went for a walk in the Kaeng Krachan National Park and never returned, police said.
Her camera contained photos of wildlife, and investigators believe she was crushed by elephants based on the nature of her injuries.
"We believe that what happened to Lily was a result of unknowable and unusual circumstances which she must have been unable to foresee or prevent," her family said in a statement.
Glidden, who graduated from Tufts University in 2012 with a biology degree, had done work trapping wolves in the West, handling venomous snakes in Hong Kong, and counting game animals on the Serenegti plain. She spent a year in tracking and survival training at a wilderness school.
(Excerpt) Read more at usnews.nbcnews.com ...
One has to wonder what she was doing to put herself in such a position, and no witnesses to be found? The natives exist over there without being stampeded, so, she may have been operating differently than a native Thai would chose. Then again, the elephants may have reacted to some sudden crack of a branch, stampeding right over her, completely unaware of her presence. If she had been my friend, I would admire someone with such a core of courage. We need people like that. There are folks who court danger in order to tame it or join it. I think she was confident of her ability to tame these wild things. Remember the british woman in Born Free? She did not try to tame them until long after joining them in the jungle.
Would be ironic if this gals fave tune was Led Zeppelin “Trampled Underfoot”
Crickey!
I was thinking the same thing.
She was in a business where you only get one bad day. Sort of like a high-wire artist working without a net. The world needs people like that.
When Joy Adamson (Born Free) was brutally murdered by a disgruntled former employee, her husband, grieving, said something that I thought was very poignant and classy. He said, “Far better it had been a lion.” Not that he wanted his wife to die, but if she had to go, it would have given her life more meaning to go out doing what she was born to do. Study the big cats.
This young woman died doing her job, which she loved. There are worse ways to go — and we all have to go someday.
Rest in Peace.
I’d give her a 97%, which is an A+, when it comes to handling dangerous animals.
When you convince yourself that you have nothing to fear you are on very thin ice.
Yes but what she learned came to late to do her any good.
We are being trampled by donkeys (Democrats).
“We believe that what happened to Lily was a result of unknowable and unusual circumstances which she must have been unable to foresee or prevent,” her family said in a statement.
Bull. I can’t even imagine what PC stupidity they are protecting to even think such a thing.
If these people understood as much about animals as they purport to they’d have KNOWN that such an attack can occur at ANY TIME.
At the mating season or if the animal has a wound (invisible or otherwise)The mere click of a camera can (and has) sent an elephant into a charging rage.
Yes, you are right. Most of his kills were with the .275 Rigby but he did use the Enfield as well and that is what I think young bucks hanging around the barracks thought they could duplicate with their service rifles.
All the same, astounding man doing those things with small calibre rounds. Fearless is pretty much apt in Bell’s case, although I’ll bet he sweat bullets on more than one occasion. This young woman was more likely a victim of her own inflated self-esteem and a bad education about the real world and its true dangers.
This story supports your theory, and it’s something (”musth”) she apparently didn’t pick up on in her biology / animal behavior courses:
“Colonel Woradet Suanklaai told reporters: ‘’Her arms, her wrists and other parts of the body were broken, so we assumed she was trampled by elephants because no humans could have caused such damage to the body.’’
The woman was travelling alone after she left a camping ground in the park, the largest in the country.
Deaths from elephants are rare in Thailand, especially if the cause is wild elephants. One death has been recorded in recent years in Phang Nga, north of Phuket, when a male trekking elephant went on a rampage.
Male elephants go into ‘’musth’’ each month and can be dangerous, which is why the vast majority of trekking elephants on Phuket are female.”
I also doubt she had a gun with her; bad choice.
“This story supports your theory,...”
The “Theory” is about her death but there is of course nothing theoretical about musth or bull elephants charging literally at the click of a camera: it was captured on film and presented in a book called “The Nature of the Beast”, written around 1960 by a British life long conservation agent working in Africa.
He also said that you know the Elephant has you marked for destruction (versus simply trying to scare you-which they do)when in the course of his foot stomping, headshaking and bellowing he ‘tucks his trunk into his mouth and spreads his ears out. They got a sequence of pictures showing this. In the first the elephant was walking away from the camera, then in the second turning his head in the direction of the offending camera click, then in the third tucking and charging. They escaped only because there happened to be a path thru the heavy brush that allowed them to run far enough fast enough to bring the animals weak eyesight into play(although the elephant also enjoyed the expedient of smashing straight thru the brush after them).
There is a video out of an elephant in a zoo (I think it was a zoo)that went on a rampage and went after its caretaker, Kicked open the gate the guy had tried to close and kicked him and he landed right next to a building wall. The elephant got down on his knee’s and tried to smash the guy with his head. Due to where the guy was laying, wedged against the wall of the building, the elephants head could not get to him to kill him..
Sounds like that was one lucky guy...ugh! That would have to be a lousy way to go.
What is that stuff between an elephants toes called?
Fearless researchers!
I have decided never to tick off an elephant. Maybe a mouse but nothing bigger...
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