‘Stressed’ elephant kills Spanish tourist in Thailand

A “panicked” elephant killed a Spanish woman while she was bathing the animal at an elephant center in Thailand, local police said.

Blanca Ojanguren Garcia, 22, was washing the elephant at the Koh Yao Elephant Care Center last Friday when she was stabbed to death by the animal.

Experts told Spanish newspaper Clarín that the elephant may have been stressed because it had to interact with tourists outside its natural habitat.

Garcia, who was a law and international relations student at Spain’s University of Navarre, was living in Taiwan as part of a student exchange program.

She was visiting Thailand with her boyfriend who witnessed the attack.

Spanish Foreign Minister Jose Manuel Albarez said the Spanish consulate in Bangkok was helping Garcia’s family.

BBC News has contacted the elephant care center for comment.

Bathing elephants is a popular activity among tourists in Thailand, which is home to more than 4,000 wild animals and has a similar number in captivity, according to the National Parks Department.

The Koh Yao Center offers “elephant care” packages that allow tourists to prepare food and feed the animals, as well as bathe and walk them. These packages cost between 1,900 baht ($55; £44) and 2,900 baht.

Animal activists have previously criticized elephant bathing activities, noting that they disrupt natural grooming behavior and expose the animals to unnecessary stress and potential injury.

World Animal Protection, an international charity, has for years called on countries including Thailand to stop breeding elephants in captivity.

More than six in 10 elephants used for tourism in Asia live in “grossly inadequate” conditions, the charity said.

“These intelligent and socially complex animals, capable of complex thoughts and emotions, endure profound suffering in captivity because their natural social structures cannot be artificially reproduced,” the charity said.