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Related Content Elephant turns on handler

ELEPHANT Sanctuary owner Chris Kruger yesterday spent about R5000 and his entire morning buying up every copy of The Herald he could find in Plettenberg Bay and Knysna.

Kruger’s efforts, confirmed by a number of shop owners who recognised him, were apparently an attempt to stop locals from reading the front-page story about an elephant handler who was gored in the chest by an eight-year-old cow at the Elephant Sanctuary in The Crags on Monday.

Although Kruger confirmed the incident in a statement issued to The Herald on Tuesday, he could not be reached yesterday for comment on his Herculean newspaper-buying spree.

The Herald staff found about 1000 copies of the newspaper where Kruger had dumped them at the Plett waste recycling plant early yesterday afternoon.

Workers at the plant said he arrived with his car’s boot full of “fresh” newspapers.

The Herald’s offices were earlier inundated with calls from irate readers who said they had been unable to find any copies of their favourite newspaper, the last daily still serving the region with a dedicated Garden Route edition.

Bemused shop owners laughed when asked what had happened to all the copies.

“You won’t find a Herald anywhere in Plett today. Chris took them all,” said a shop manager who asked to remain anonymous.

Several hundred newspapers were retrieved from the dump and redistributed free of charge yesterday afternoon.

The injured handler, whose name was not revealed by the Elephant Sanctuary, was yesterday said to be in a stable condition in Knysna Private Hospital’s high care facility.

A hospital spokesman said the man was admitted on Monday with “some punctures” in the chest area and suffered “some damage to his ribs and lungs”.

Kruger earlier described the incident as “an accident” and said the Elephant Owners Association was also investigating.

“The incident occurred when the young elephant cow pushed past a handler who was in the elephant’s path and the handler got injured in the process,” Kruger said.

He said the sanctuary’s elephants were being taken for their regular feed in the bush on Monday morning when the man was injured.

Kruger said the handler was keen to get back to his animals.

“He has been working with the herd of elephants and the young elephant cow that accidentally injured him for the past five years.”

There were no guests present at the time.

Kruger said it was the first such incident at the sanctuary since the facility opened five years ago.