I think you sum it up in the statement Quote:- "All of us who go on safaris are already intruding into the wildlife's territory"
By walking & camping in the bush you become part of that bush & not an intruder.

I do definitely agree that bush walking should only be for the experienced safari tourist...... What ever that may be?!

It is a very sad story however we are talking about wildlife here -

The camp may have made some extra money with regards to the walking tour however to take a 1 year old baby for a walk in the bush is not the best idea at all. Infants talk and have a higher pitched voice that is heard further and can create distress with animals.

When my son was 18 months and I was visiting my dad who was living in the Mara at the time, everytime my son spoke, a lioness would lift her head higher to examine the noise and was uneasy of this noise - we were in a 4 x4.

Elephants are getting killed in big numbers all over Africa and we do not know yet how cleaver they are or how they are able to communicate with each other however I am sure that when they hear humans walking and towards them (let alone with a calf) it is normal that they will react as their life at times in on the line due to poachers who walk up to them to kill them.

I agree with Kipper - leave the walking up to the more expert tourist (what ever we cvan classify that as) and we MUST remember that in the bush you are on animal andf wild life areas which they have protected for millions of years, it is NOT our area. When ever out in the bush we risk getting injured by animals, snakes, insewcts - it is like going to the tropics and getting malaria; it is part of the risk and it is up to us to use intelligence and to protect ourselves.
I am sorry for the family of course as it must be very hard on them - but we must learn from this; camp owners and tourists.

Jan - in defense of my artificial hips: The last thing you want to do is run from buffalo, elephant or rhino as they ALL CAN RUN TWICE AS FAST AS THE FASTEST OLYMPIC RUNNER!!!

I have had to get deal with all three on the many walking trips (before and after my hip replacements).

Buffalo are tough and realistically you'd better get up a tree, or on top of rocky outcroppings....I was able to do this with my trusty titanium hips on a camel walk in the Ndoto mountains, northern Kenya....and also in Botswana. I have also strolled slowly around single, old bulls (supposedly the most aggressive) with no problem, however, that may have been shear luck, more than outwitting them....

In Botswana I was surrounded on three sides by a herd of 20 or so elephants....on foot with a Bushman guide (no gun). I gulped and said to him "are we finished?" He just smiled, took my hand and said "whatever you do, don't run"...we backed up VERY SLOWLY into the only clear space and the elephants stopped walking toward us....another exciting close call.

Camping outside the Mara one night at 3am, I had a fit of exploding bowels and had to walk from my one-person tent to the "choo" (long drop toilet) about 50 yards away. Halfway there I found myself in amongst a herd of foraging elephants. I picked up my flashlight (torch) and saw the gray flank of an enormous elephant only a few feet away. I looked back at my little pup tent and thought that was no place to seek safety. I saw our trusty Maasai Askari sleeping soundly on the picnic table...completely oblivious as were my fellow campers. I just stood absolutely still and thought "well, if this is my last day on earth, my friends will at least have an interesting story". The eles moved around me and it took me an hour to stop shaking....(and, I made it to the "choo" in time!)

Another time walking in the high grass with another cheetah project volunteer, I noticed the swishing sound of a snake coming through the grass in my direction. Again, word to the wise....keep absolutely still!!! The snake moved over my left hiking boot and after about 30 feet made it too a sandy patch. It was a very big Black Mamba. This time it took 2 hours to stop shaking. He/she made no aggressive move toward me as long as I pretended to be part of the landscape.

Then I was on Rhino Patrol on foot at Ol Pejeta working on a conservation project with several conservationists and a ranger with a rifle....I was last in line as we walked through a very thick patch of bush....I looked behind me and saw a huge male rhino right behind us in the bushes. I called out "rhino in back of us" and every body dove into the bushes....I tossed my light-colored cowboy hat out on the trail and the near-sighted bull rhino trampled over it. (Always wear the best - it was an original Stetson cowboy hat!!!)

By the way, if you think you're safe from an enraged elephant in a Landrover....forget it. I have been seriously charged a dozen times by angry elephants and they crush several vehicles and kill or injure people in them every year in Africa. Back away or make a serious detour...IMMEDIATELY. On foot...hold your ground and pray to whatever gods you may think might help (there is an Indian elephant god but I forget her name).

My luck is bound to run out. But as they say "stuff happens". Nor matter how careful you are...."stuff happens". Putting things in perspective - I am terrified of driving!!! Here in the USA an average of 42,000 people are killed on highways every singe year! Now that's what scares the "stuff" out of me!!!

Well Kat I must say I love your stories! Did you write a book? I think if we respect wildlife it will respect us unless it is having a bad day. I hope to someday go on a nice walk while in africa and when i do i will know that i am in the animals space and will know i could die and if i do i won't blame anyone. When i was little growing up in the hills of west virginia I was chased by a mean cow with big horns and a crazy big red hog that had huge tusks and foamed at the mouth, my dad never ran from that cow he never even looked back at her, she would slide right up to his back but never hit him. The hog finally tried to kill my dad but he escaped into the creek in the middle of winter and he finally believed me how mean he was and he sold him. For some reason those two animals were more tolerate of my dad than me. we never know what animals are thinking it could be the perfume someone wears, they make some of that from animal urine, or it could be the color of the clothes they have on who knows. That mother elephant may have been teased by another person earlier that day. I don't believe those huge pay outs is a good thing for kenya to do.

Joyce - thank you for the compliment but my stories are not particularly book-worthy. Though I've meet numerous people who have been working in conservation that deserve this recognition. Many have written books about their exploits, but there are others who have toiled for decades in every aspect of wildlife conservation who are too modest or who just never had the time to sit still to write them down.

Many will regale us around the campfire with amazing - funny, horrific, impossible, uplifting - stories that are never immortalized. Then again, African history has for the most part been a verbal rather than a written tradition - at least with the original native black Africans.

I remember talking to a Ranger once around the campfire and he told of hand-to-hand combat with a large, male lion....he saw that everyone was giving him skeptical looks. He took off his Ranger shirt and there were WOW'S of amazement from the audience....8 or 9 long scar marks from the claws of a lion ran from his back down the front of his body....he not only survive his horrific attack but killed with lion with a foot-long knife.
Now that's a story!

Joyce, whatever happened to the big red hog? Was he a true wild hog or a domesticated one that returned to his wild roots? I hear that escaped domestic pigs take a very short time to revert back to tusked, hairy wild hogs.

NO JAN!

I am strongly opposing bush walks - even for experienced walkers like Kipper

As long as bush walkers haven't signed an Indemnity for the sake of the wildlife I would oppose in any case!

I AM NOT ENCOURAGING my clients to do bush walks! NEVER! I just give tjem the option but brief them here even before they take off. The same with mokoros! When they feel they should do it to get the experience - fine. But they must know the risk. It's not a walk in a zoo!