South African ranger trampled to death by elephant

An elephant trampled to death a ranger near a luxury South African game lodge at the weekend, as he was walking on his own through the bush to take photos, the Beeld newspaper reported Monday. The mutilated body of Tavus Momberg, 29, was found just 200 metres (yards) from the Makweti Safari Lodge, in a private wildlife reserve in the Waterberg Mountains in the northern part of the country, the Afrikaans-language paper said. He had been taking photos with a colleague, but continued the hike on his own when the other man turned back. "We are not certain if he went to photograph trees, and if he perhaps saw the elephant and wanted to take pictures of it," Momberg's brother Quentin told the paper. South Africa is a conservation success story for elephants, whose numbers have more than doubled since 1995 to about 18,000.