{"id":106821,"date":"2025-08-30T02:32:08","date_gmt":"2025-08-30T02:32:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/106821\/"},"modified":"2025-08-30T02:32:08","modified_gmt":"2025-08-30T02:32:08","slug":"tourist-pouring-beer-down-elephants-trunk-in-kenya-sparks-anger-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/106821\/","title":{"rendered":"Tourist pouring beer down elephant&#8217;s trunk in Kenya sparks anger"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Several investigations have been launched after a Spanish man in Kenya posted videos of himself pouring beer down an elephant&#8217;s trunk &#8211; sparking anger on social media.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">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<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">&#8220;Just a tusker with a tusked friend,&#8221; he captioned one clip posted on Instagram, which was later deleted from his account after a backlash from Kenyans in the comments.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">The BBC analysed the footage and was able to authenticate it as genuine. The landscape and a well-known bull elephant pointed to it being filmed at the Ol Jogi Conservancy in the central county of Laikipia.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Ol Jogi Conservancy has since been in touch to confirm the incident occurred last year at the privately owned wildlife sanctuary &#8211; saying it was &#8220;unacceptable, dangerous and completely against our values&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Earlier a member of the staff there had told the BBC he was shocked by the behaviour of the yet-to-be identified guest.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">&#8220;This should never have happened. We&#8217;re a conservation and we can&#8217;t allow that to happen,&#8221; the staffer, only identified as Frank, said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">&#8220;We don&#8217;t even allow people to go near the elephants.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">The Kenya Wildlife Service (KWS) was also investigating the matter, the agency&#8217;s spokesperson Paul Udoto told the BBC.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">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<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">In another clip shared on Instagram on Tuesday, he is seen feeding two elephants with carrots and then saying: &#8220;We are on beer time.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">The Instagram videos attracted hundreds of critical comments &#8211; with some calling for the man&#8217;s deportation &#8211; before the posts were pulled down.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">The elephant that was given the beer is big in size, with long tusks &#8211; one in particular is distinctive as it is damaged.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Ol Jogi Conservancy has confirmed the animal involved is Bupa, a friendly male whose photo is often shared by visitors.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">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<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">&#8220;He is cared for closely by our team as an ambassador for conservation,&#8221; the wildlife sanctuary said in a statement.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">It treated cases like that involving the beer stunt &#8220;extremely seriously&#8221; and remained committed to ensuring the wellbeing and dignity of the animals in its care, it added.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Ol Jogi 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<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">The man featured in the beer videos, who describes himself as an &#8220;adrenaline junkie&#8221; 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<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">&#8220;He has also broken our rules because he was not supposed to touch the rhinos because they are not pets,&#8221; Dylan Habil from Ol Pejeta told the BBC.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">He confirmed the rhino in the footage was from their nature reserve but the elephant in the beer video did not belong to them.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Dr Winnie Kiiru, a Kenyan biologist and elephant conservationist, termed the tourist&#8217;s behaviour &#8220;unfortunate&#8221; as it had endangered his life and that of the elephant.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">&#8220;About 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,&#8221; she told the BBC.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">The incident comes barely a week after a group of tourists were filmed blocking migrating wildebeest at Kenya&#8217;s Maasai Mara during the annual wildlife migration &#8211; one of the world&#8217;s greatest wildlife spectacles.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">The viral footage showed visitors jumping out of safari vehicles, crowding riverbanks and forcing wildebeests into crocodile-infested waters &#8211; sparking outage.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">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<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">It also pledged to improve signage across the wildlife parks and intensify visitor education on safety rules.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">The Maasai Mara wildebeest migration draws thousands of visitors annually and is regarded as one of Kenya&#8217;s most prized natural heritage assets.<\/p>\n<p>You may also be interested in:<img alt=\"A woman looking at her mobile phone and the graphic BBC News Africa\" loading=\"lazy\" width=\"960\" height=\"295\" decoding=\"async\" data-nimg=\"1\" class=\"rounded-lg\" style=\"color:transparent\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/c7a608b642136b2879dce57f6fb5d461.jpeg\"\/><\/p>\n<p>[Getty Images\/BBC]<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Go to <a href=\"http:\/\/bbcafrica.com\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:BBCAfrica.com;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" class=\"link \">BBCAfrica.com<\/a> for more news from the African continent.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Follow us on Twitter <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/BBCAfrica\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:@BBCAfrica;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" class=\"link \">@BBCAfrica<\/a>, on Facebook at <a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/BBCnewsafrica\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:BBC Africa;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" class=\"link \">BBC Africa<\/a> or on Instagram at <a href=\"https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/bbcafrica\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:bbcafrica;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" class=\"link \">bbcafrica<\/a><\/p>\n<p>BBC Africa podcasts<script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><script async src=\"\/\/www.instagram.com\/embed.js\"><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Several investigations have been launched after a Spanish man in Kenya posted videos of himself pouring beer down&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":33724,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[49,48,17707,60841,60842,66,323],"class_list":{"0":"post-106821","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-wildlife","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-kenya","11":"tag-kenya-wildlife-service","12":"tag-ol-jogi","13":"tag-science","14":"tag-wildlife"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/106821","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=106821"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/106821\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/33724"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=106821"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=106821"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=106821"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}