4 tons of "Pissed off" matriarc. They have known to stick their tusks through windows of vehicles seriously injuring some passengers and even turning some vehicles sideways.
In 1987, a female with a young calf, pushed a vehicle, full of tourists, out of the road and down to a steep cliff of the ngorongoro crater. This road is very narrow and the only route down to the base of the crater. It has very steet cliffs that roll all the way down to the crater and a very dense vegetation in some areas. Only because the rangers found the orphan baby elephant near the edge of the road and the tire marks of the vehicles that they were able to figured out that the vehicle has fallen. Unfortunately, they all died, including the mother elephant who also felt to her death in the frantic intent of pushing the vehicle out of the way. Cameras recovered from the passengers showed how they encountered the mother and her baby in the road as they were going back. They stop to take photographs, blocking the path of the elephant (something you know well never to do when encountering elephants, hippos, buffalos, etc). They also got dangerly close in the attempt "to get the picture". The mother elephant did the only thing she knew to do to protect her calf at that moment.....
A tragic and very stupid mistake made by the guide/driver simply trying to get some extra tips.
It is always very important to give wild animals their space and respect their right or way and we must not interfere in their behavior while we visit their kindom.
