We usually talk about elephants killed by hunters — this time the roles were reversed. Ian Gibson, 55, a professional hunter and big-game hunting expert, was charged and killed by a young elephant during a lion hunting expedition in a wilderness area in north-eastern Zimbabwe.

Killed by a kneel

Gibson was accompanying an American client; the two had already shot a leopard and were following the tracks of a lion when the elephant, at a distance of roughly one hundred metres, spotted the two men and charged them. Gibson fired at the pachyderm without killing it, and the animal reportedly knelt on top of the hunter, crushing him to death under its weight.

Why the elephant attacked the men

The elephant had most likely felt threatened by two armed men moving around in the area, and was also in its mating season, a condition technically known as musth. During this phase elephants are particularly aggressive due to increased production of sex hormones, signalled by hypersecretion of the temporal glands, and they sometimes attack without warning.

The elephant's condition unknown

"He was such an experienced hunter that this is an unexpected tragedy," said Paul Smith, chief executive of Chifuti Hunting Safaris, the hunting safari agency that Gibson worked for. No reports have yet emerged regarding the condition of the elephant that the hunter shot. "He would never have fired if he had had any alternative," Smith said.

Killing for a living

And yet Gibson perhaps did have alternatives — he could, for instance, have chosen a job that did not involve killing animals, often large ones and potentially very dangerous. He could have avoided escorting wealthy tourists who find it particularly thrilling to kill a wild animal in a patently unequal contest, only to end up with a macabre trophy to hang in the living room. Gibson had begun his career protecting wildlife, working in Zimbabwe's national parks department, but had left that position roughly 25 years ago to become a hunter.

There is nothing glorious about taking a life

There is no point in searching for a lesson or a moral in this story — killing is an act with no way back, and bloodshed is not something to rejoice over, regardless of the species involved. Humans, however, can rely on their capacity for discernment, something they take great pride in; and thanks to that capacity, they could choose not to feel great by shooting an animal.