Maruti Gypsy Attacked By Elephant — Here Is Why The SUV Still Rules In Wildlife Sanctuaries

Safaris in wildlife sanctuaries and national parks are commonplace across India and quite common too. Quite often than not, the urban animal ventures out into the wild to have a look and take a few pictures before coming back to the urban landscape. Helping us humans do that are the jungle safari vehicles and its drivers.

These vehicles sometimes include mini buses but most of the times are either a Maruti Gypsy or a Mahindra MM-540/550. The Maruti Gypsy is generally preferred because of its quieter petrol engine that causes lesser disturbance to wildlife than the Mahindras with their noisy DI engines.

These vehicles make multiple runs inside the national park every day and sometimes even in the night, and most of the time, the safari goes perfectly smooth. A few times though, things go wild. Like in this instance, an elephant attacked tourists in a Maruti Gypsy.

Thankfully, no one was hurt in the incident, but the Gypsy bore the brunt of the Pachyderm. The incident took place recently in the Jim Corbett National Park, Ramnagar, Uttarakhand. The video of the incident was uploaded on YouTube by a person who seems to be a wildlife enthusiast based out of the same national park.

The video has been taken from one of the vehicles in the convoy and shows another vehicle in the convoy being attacked by an Elephant. The driver of the Maruti Gypsy reportedly drove close to an Elephant herd upon being requested by a tourist who wanted to take a selfie with the animals.

One of the elephants in the herd was threatened by this move and attacked the vehicle. The pachyderm first attacked the front-end of the Maruti Gypsy and people in the convoy started shouting to shoo away the animal.

Another Gypsy in the convoy can be seen moving towards the elephant in order to scare it away. The elephant then rammed the side of the Gypsy and even tried to flip the vehicle. The Maruti Gypsy though bore the ire of the animal without flinching.

After a few hits, the elephant walked away from the convoy and people heaved a sigh of relief. This is not the first time elephants have attacked human beings and vehicles. There have been reports of such attacks from Jim Corbett National park as well as from other wildlife sanctuaries around India.

Thoughts On Elephant Attacks Maruti Gypsy In Jim Corbett National Park

In the video, one can see and hear many people panicking when the elephant attacked. In such situations, the last thing one needs to do is panic. It should be handled calmly and quietly. Elephants generally are quiet and peaceful animals when left to themselves. It is only when they are threatened, they attack humans and that is exactly what has happened in this case.