International wildlife charity, Born Free Foundation, has today released extraordinary video footage capturing the moment world-renowned conservationist, Ian Redmond OBE, was almost fatally charged by an elephant.
Redmond, who is a Wildlife Consultant with Born Free, was observing elephants with members of the Foundation-sponsored Mount Elgon Elephant Monitoring (MEEM) team and local Kenya Wildlife Service (KWS) rangers in Mount Elgon National Park and forest reserves, in Western Kenya, when the near miss occurred.
Mount Elgon is home to a unique population of elephants. Made famous by Sir David Attenborough’s Life of Mammals TV series, they feel their way hundreds of metres into enormous caves to find and mine minerals with their tusks deep underground.
While Redmond was watching a herd cross a forest glade approximately 150 metres away, one of the elephants turned and charged.
Redmond, who unbelievably caught fragments of the near-fatal incident on camera, escaped with a partially dislocated shoulder and soft tissue damage to his neck and chest.
