I’ve never decided whether I’d be more excited at the prospect of seeing an elephant or worried at the prospect of being gored by one. On one hand, elephants are amazingly intelligent giants (one of the few giant land animals remaining on Earth) found only in certain areas in Asia and Africa who have a long and storied history with mankind few other animals can match. These creatures have served in armies, tilled fields, lounged about as sacred animals in temples, and carried trees with or for mankind for thousands of years– and they’ve got long memories, emotions, and opinions just like people do. There are thousands of African tours available that exist specifically to see these animals.
On the other hand, there’s all those documentaries on Animal Planet that portray the beasts as enormous vicious killers that in some areas have learned to target humans, rip apart their houses, and gore them with five-foot tusks. I can’t say I necessarily blame them– in Africa, for instance, the elephant populations are a routine target of people who kill them horribly, take those tusks, and leave the rest of the animal to rot– but the prospect of me myself perhaps being stabbed by a rampaging literally insane male elephant during certain periods of the year leaves me at an impasse whenever I try looking up safari tours of any kind. Even the ones without elephants.
But perhaps that’s all specious. On the whole, driving around in a fortified van with an experienced tour guide is perfectly safe unless someone does something stupid, and the risk of someone doing something stupid that might lead to one’s untimely death is an ever-constant threat no matter where you are. Besides, there are multiple people in those tour vehicles and an angry elephant could easily pick someone else to stab instead of me, right? And, in the end (if I survive) I can always tell friends and family about that one time I went to Africa and almost got mauled. That’s the best kind of story!