Several investigations have been launched after a Spanish man in Kenya posted videos of himself pouring beer down an elephant\u2019s trunk \u2013 sparking anger on social media.<\/p>\n
He was filmed in a wildlife reservation drinking from a can of Tusker, a popular local beer, before giving the rest of it to the elephant.<\/p>\n
\u201cJust a tusker with a tusked friend,\u201d he captioned one clip posted on Instagram, which was later deleted from his account after a backlash from Kenyans in the comments.<\/p>\n
The BBC analysed the footage and was able to authenticate it as genuine. The landscape and a well-known bull elephant point to it being filmed at the Ol Jogi Conservancy in the central county of Laikipia.<\/p>\n
A member of the staff contacted by the BBC at the privately owned wildlife sanctuary was shocked by the behaviour \u2013 and said the videos would be passed on to \u201cthe relevant authorities\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis should never have happened. We\u2019re a conservation and we can\u2019t allow that to happen,\u201d the staffer, only identified as Frank, said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe don\u2019t even allow people to go near the elephants.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Kenya Wildlife Service (KWS) was also probing the incident, the agency\u2019s spokesperson Paul Udoto told the BBC.<\/p>\n
The man involved does not use his name on his social media accounts, which all have a variation of the phrase Skydive_Kenya.<\/p>\n
In another clip shared on Instagram on Tuesday, he is seen feeding two elephants with carrots and then saying: \u201cWe are on beer time.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Instagram videos attracted hundreds of critical comments \u2013 with some calling for the man\u2019s deportation \u2013 before the posts were pulled down.<\/p>\n
The elephant that was given the beer is big in size, with long tusks \u2013 one in particular is distinctive as it is damaged.<\/p>\n
From other images and videos posted online, it matches the description of Bupa, a friendly male at Ol Jogi whose photo is often shared by visitors.<\/p>\n
Bupa was rescued from a mass elephant cull in Zimbabwe in 1989 and brought to the conservancy when he was eight years old.<\/p>\n
Ol Jogi says it is home to about 500 elephants and regards itself one of the pioneers in rehabilitating animal orphans and releasing them back to the wild.<\/p>\n
The man featured in the beer videos, who describes himself as an \u201cadrenaline junkie\u201d on TikTok, had posted a video on Monday in which he is seen at the nearby Ol Pejeta Conservancy feeding a rhino with carrots.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe has also broken our rules because he was not supposed to touch the rhinos because they are not pets,\u201d Dylan Habil from Ol Pejeta told the BBC.<\/p>\n
He confirmed the rhino in the footage was from their nature reserve.<\/p>\n
Dr Winnie Kiiru, a Kenyan biologist and elephant conservationist, termed the tourist\u2019s behaviour \u201cunfortunate\u201d as it had endangered his life and that of the elephant.<\/p>\n
\u201cAbout 95% of elephants in Kenya are wild and it is wrong to have social media posts that give the impression that you can get close to the elephants and feed them,\u201d she told the BBC.<\/p>\n
The incident comes barely a week after a group of tourists were filmed blocking migrating wildebeest at Kenya\u2019s Maasai Mara during the annual wildlife migration \u2013 one of the world\u2019s greatest wildlife spectacles.<\/p>\n
The viral footage showed visitors jumping out of safari vehicles, crowding riverbanks and forcing wildebeests into crocodile-infested waters \u2013 sparking outage.<\/p>\n
Following the incident, the tourism and wildlife ministry announced stricter rules, directing tour operators to enforce park rules by ensuring visitors remain inside vehicles except in designated areas.<\/p>\n
It also pledged to improve signage across the wildlife parks and intensify visitor education on safety rules.<\/p>\n
The Maasai Mara wildebeest migration draws thousands of visitors annually and is regarded as one of Kenya\u2019s most prized natural heritage assets.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Several investigations have been launched after a Spanish man in Kenya posted videos of himself pouring beer down an elephant\u2019s trunk \u2013 sparking anger on social media. He was filmed in a wildlife reservation drinking from a can of Tusker, a popular local beer, before giving the rest of it to the elephant. \u201cJust a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-120522","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","entry"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/120522","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=120522"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/120522\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=120522"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=120522"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=120522"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}