Killer elephant named after Osama slain

AP on Yahoo ^ | 12/16/06 | AP

[NormsRevenge]

GAUHATI, India - A killer elephant named after Osama bin Laden by fearful villagers was killed by sharpshooters, officials said Sunday. The animal was blamed for 14 deaths in the northeastern state of Assam.

"A licensed shooter shot and killed the 10-foot tall bull near the Behali forest reserve in northern Assam," said wildlife warden Chandan Bora.

Wildlife authorities had ordered that the elephant be shot and killed by December 31.

The order came after the bull — dubbed "Laden" — was blamed for the death of a woman Wednesday near the thickly wooded evergreen jungle where it lived. The elephant evaded two previous attempts by officials to kill it.

Confrontations between humans and elephants have escalated in northeastern India in recent years as the elephants' natural habitat has been destroyed, forcing the animals to forage for food in areas where humans live.

In the past five years, more than 250 people have been killed in Assam by elephants, while angry villagers killed 268 elephants during the same period, officials said.

Assam is estimated to have 5,300 Asiatic elephants.

[NormsRevenge]

Villagers and hunters look on at a male elephant nicknamed Laden, that was killed by a hunter at the Behali tea plantation in Sonitpur district, 240 kilometers (150 miles) north of Gauhati, India, Saturday, Dec. 16, 2006. Authorities in India's remote northeast gave orders to hunt down and kill the rogue elephant blamed for 14 deaths that has been nicknamed Laden by fearful villagers, after the al-Qaida leader.(AP Photo)

[goldstategop]

BREAKING NEWS: I guess they got the reincarnated Bin Laden. They got him! Now back to our regularly scheduled programming.

"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." -Manuel II Paleologus

[Jaysun]

I saw a similar story in which a killer lion was named after Osama and eventually killed.

[NormsRevenge]

I guess they got the reincarnated Bin Laden. They got him!

---

sounds like a lot of bull to me

[goldstategop]

I can just see the Democrats condemn Bush for helping India commit the terrible crime of speciesist murder.

"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." -Manuel II Paleologus

[NormsRevenge]

the dems will demand a bipartisan group investigate and report back with solutions to this obviously long-simmering and escalating civil war between pachyderms and villagers.

[bobby.223]

I like the "sharpshooters" ref. how "sharp" do you have to be to hit this monster, even at a longer range. good grief.

[Zeppo]

A killer elephant named after Osama bin Laden by fearful villagers

. . .

while angry villagers killed 268 elephants during the same period

Wow, those villagers sure get a bad rap from the AP... They're either characterized as 'fearful' or 'angry'. No stereotyping of 'village people' going on here, huh...

[goldstategop]

If this was Israel, the Security Council would be holding a hearing now to condemn the Jews for an unjustified "targeted assassination."

"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." -Manuel II Paleologus

[skeptoid]

This one was after BEER. Check out the article link in this previous post.

Now even the elephants can't have a good time w/o BEER!!

[NormsRevenge]

rice beer? no wonder.

There was an old Liz Taylor movie , late 50s or so,,, Elephant Walk, in the end the elephants won. not sure about beer tho, this was filmed in Africa, it was more of an ancestral path thing having to do with property rights.

[CarrotAndStick]

They've got to aim for the heart or some other spot to kill an elephant quickly. Any other place and the enraged animal will live for a longer while.

[bobby.223]

It does not take a "sharpshooter" to preform this shot. come on.

[beyond the sea]

killed by sharpshooters

B.S.

[beyond the sea]

Those ignorant suckers in that picture have nothing better to do. If they only had some video games to play.

[beyond the sea]

They've got to aim for the heart or some other spot to kill an elephant quickly

"or some other spot" ---

How silly.

[CarrotAndStick]

No...I meant another vital spot. I remember seeing a video of some cops taking down a rogue elephant. They pumped bullets into the abdomen and some in the head of the animal...the thing charged on for almost 10 more minutes before it collapsed.

[CarrotAndStick]

Something interesting:

But I did not want to shoot the elephant. I watched him beating his bunch of grass against his knees, with that preoccupied grandmotherly air that elephants have. It seemed to me that it would be murder to shoot him. At that age I was not squeamish about killing animals, but I had never shot an elephant and never wanted to. (Somehow it always seems worse to kill a large animal.) Besides, there was the beast's owner to be considered. Alive, the elephant was worth at least a hundred pounds; dead, he would only be worth the value of his tusks, five pounds, possibly. But I had got to act quickly. I turned to some experienced-looking Burmans who had been there when we arrived, and asked them how the elephant had been behaving. They all said the same thing: he took no notice of you if you left him alone, but he might charge if you went too close to him.

It was perfectly clear to me what I ought to do. I ought to walk up to within, say, twenty-five yards of the elephant and test his behavior. If he charged, I could shoot; if he took no notice of me, it would be safe to leave him until the mahout came back. But also I knew that I was going to do no such thing. I was a poor shot with a rifle and the ground was soft mud into which one would sink at every step. If the elephant charged and I missed him, I should have about as much chance as a toad under a steam-roller. But even then I was not thinking particularly of my own skin, only of the watchful yellow faces behind. For at that moment, with the crowd watching me, I was not afraid in the ordinary sense, as I would have been if I had been alone. A white man mustn't be frightened in front of "natives"; and so, in general, he isn't frightened. The sole thought in my mind was that if anything went wrong those two thousand Burmans would see me pursued, caught, trampled on and reduced to a grinning corpse like that Indian up the hill. And if that happened it was quite probable that some of them would laugh. That would never do.

There was only one alternative. I shoved the cartridges into the magazine and lay down on the road to get a better aim. The crowd grew very still, and a deep, low, happy sigh, as of people who see the theatre curtain go up at last, breathed from innumerable throats. They were going to have their bit of fun after all. The rifle was a beautiful German thing with cross-hair sights. I did not then know that in shooting an elephant one would shoot to cut an imaginary bar running from ear-hole to ear-hole. I ought, therefore, as the elephant was sideways on, to have aimed straight at his ear-hole, actually I aimed several inches in front of this, thinking the brain would be further forward.

When I pulled the trigger I did not hear the bang or feel the kick – one never does when a shot goes home – but I heard the devilish roar of glee that went up from the crowd. In that instant, in too short a time, one would have thought, even for the bullet to get there, a mysterious, terrible change had come over the elephant. He neither stirred nor fell, but every line of his body had altered. He looked suddenly stricken, shrunken, immensely old, as though the frightful impact of the bullet had paralysed him without knocking him down. At last, after what seemed a long time – it might have been five seconds, I dare say – he sagged flabbily to his knees. His mouth slobbered. An enormous senility seemed to have settled upon him. One could have imagined him thousands of years old. I fired again into the same spot. At the second shot he did not collapse but climbed with desperate slowness to his feet and stood weakly upright, with legs sagging and head drooping. I fired a third time. That was the shot that did for him. You could see the agony of it jolt his whole body and knock the last remnant of strength from his legs. But in falling he seemed for a moment to rise, for as his hind legs collapsed beneath him he seemed to tower upward like a huge rock toppling, his trunk reaching skyward like a tree. He trumpeted, for the first and only time. And then down he came, his belly towards me, with a crash that seemed to shake the ground even where I lay.

George Orwell, in Shooting an Elephant.

http://www.online-literature.com/orwell/887/

[RightOnline]

"I like the "sharpshooters" ref. how "sharp" do you have to be to hit this monster, even at a longer range. good grief."

Having read several accounts of big game hunters who took down elephants......takes one hell of a lot. It's all about where you hit the sumbitches to actually take them down rather than just.....well.......piss 'em off.

[Manic_Episode]

The following is a beautiful story ... sort of brings a tear to your eye. And I'm sure it's true.

A man was on holiday in Kenya. While he was walking
through the bush, he came across an elephant standing
with one leg raised in the air. The elephant seemed
distressed so the man approached it very carefully.

He got down on one knee and inspected the elephant's
foot. There was a large thorn deeply embedded in the
bottom of the foot.

As carefully and as gently as he could, he removed the
thorn and the elephant gingerly put down its foot. The
elephant turned to face the man and with a rather
stern look on its face, stared at him. For a good ten
minutes the man stood frozen -- thinking of nothing
else but being trampled.

Eventually the elephant trumpeted loudly, turned and
walked away.

For years after, the man remembered the elephant and
the events of that day. One day the man was walking
through the zoo with his son. As they approached the
elephant enclosure, one of the creatures turned and
walked over to where they are standing at the rail.

It stared at him and the man couldn't help wondering
if this was the same elephant.

After a while it trumpeted loudly, then it continued
to stare at him. The man summoned up his courage,
climbed over the railing and made his way into the
enclosure. He walked right up to the elephant and
stared back in wonder.

Suddenly the elephant trumpeted again, wrapped its
trunk around one of the man's legs and swung him
wildly back and forth along the railing, killing him.

Probably wasn't the same elephant.