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I think sliding around to the guys left would be very possible to make an escape from the elephant approaching in front.

Elephants are not cats or dogs so not predators with a chase instinct. But do they tend to chase a running person? I know when the herd is crashing through the forest towards one if one has a suitable firearm, backing up is the tactic not fleeing madly.

I think the answer to my question, do elephants chase, is it depends on the attitude of the elephant at the time.

Neither of the two elephants above in the still photo is showing aggressive behaviour. I think it is an open tourist loadge/cottage and they have chanced upon a human who has got flanked.

The lodge actually looks to me a little like one of the three cottages on top of a hill out in the open at Nantwich in the West of Hwange Park in Zimbabwe. I spent two or three nights of my honeymoon there. A beautfiul place which at one time had been restricted to rangers and VIPs. We had a 'servant' and a cottage designed for about sixteen. All to ourselves. And for the magnificient fee of less than $15 per day!

At a time when tourist lodges charged around #250 per day. The other two cottages were empty. We had the place to 100% ourselves and in fact very few tourists ever ventured into the far West of the Park.

I remember reading the guestbook. A guest had written - "Why did you cut down the nice shade tree over the cottage?" The rangers answered - "We didn't, the elephants did!" No elephants up close when we were there but did have lions at the waterhole at the bottom of the hill. LOTS of elephants everywhere though. And no firearms allowed. I did have my .30-06 dismantled in my suitcase as I had been on a safari, but officially no firearms allowed. Nor 99.9% of the time needed.

At the Main camp at Hwange the night of our arrival by our own car, I enjoyed viewing elephants feeding less than 30 yards away in the forest in the dark. Main camp had a high fence surrounding it. I said to an English guy who lived in Zimbabwe and was holidaying at the camp, "If I hear wire breaking, I'm heading inside!" Next morning observed the entire fence near our cottage was flattened and had been probably for a long time.

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John aka NitroX

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Govt get out of our lives NOW!
"I love the smell of cordite in the morning."
"A Sharp spear needs no polish"

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