How Are Elephants Dangerous?

Elephants are the largest land mammals on earth. They are brown to dark gray and have coarse long hairs sparsely covering their bodies and their very thick skin helps to keep them cool. An elephant trunk serves as another limb.   They are a fusion of the nose and upper lip; to help the elephant use it to gather food and water the trunk contains more than 40,000 muscles. Their large ears are functional in fanning and provide a funneling of sounds for excellent hearing.  Their thick legs support their great weight with seemingly little effort. These massive animals grow up to 14 feet at the shoulder and can weigh between 6,000-15,000 lbs.  Simply having your foot stepped on can cost you dearly.  The weight of an elephant alone makes it dangerous.

There are many news reports throughout modern history showing elephants being euthanized or hunted because they crushed or injured a person while performing in a circus.  Elephants have sat on, stepped on, rolled onto and otherwise accidently injured persons.  Wild animals in captivity are always a dangerous bunch when not handled properly.  Even if they don’t intend to, the animal’s size alone makes it one to be weary of. 

Outside of those animals housed in zoos, many tourists are seeking out wild refuges in foreign countries that house wild animals in a natural setting.  These parks or reserves can be just as deadly.  One recent picture floating about on the internet shows an elephant forcing a car off the road and onto its roof.  While this could easily have been a trained stunt or a provoked action, it clearly shows the power and weight of the animal. 

Wild elephants can be even more dangerous when you do not know how to avoid them.  Wild elephants are not something you want to run into and if you do, stay low and quiet to hopefully avoid being charged by an angry bull elephant.

On my trip to Africa, we were coming in to the hotel as an elephant was on the side. We asked the driver to stop the car so we could take pictures since it was our very first elephant. The guide was VERY hesitant to do so and he said don't worry there will be plenty more elephants to see. Lets get a move on NOW! He tolds us that in the herds, some of the males get kicked out. These are called roug males. They can join to make a group of roug males. They are VERY dangerous and could charge at any giving moment.

Elephants can be very dangerous animals. According to statistics, there are about 3-4 dead elephant keepers in zoos around the world every year. Elephants are known to crack up for no reason at all and after this cracking up, they attack anyone and everyone that is around. Nomatter how much you train or tame them, they can prove to be very dangerous. They get musth attacks since a young age of 7. Their herds cause stampedes and crush animals, plants and humans on their way. So they are very dangerous animals.

Elephants can be dangerous animals.  They are among the most potentially dangerous animals in the world.  They are capable of crushing any other land animal.  If you have never heard the expression "elephant rage", it is applied to periods of adiante rage that have no explanation.  Elephants have been known to attack villages and kill humans during these periods of rage.


The term "rogue elephant" describes a lone, aggressive wild elephant that separates from the rest of the herd.  There is another periodic condition call "musth" during which domestic or wild elephants can become extremely dangerous to humans.  There is some thought that this condition is linked to sexual behavior or a show of dominance though the link isn't exactly clear.

There are reports of several hundred human deaths in India and other parts of Asia every year.  Elephants can be docile, but they can be provoked, and they can become aggressive and violent without explanation.

People think of elephants as peaceful animals but some times they can be really dangerous to each other, other animals and even us.