Elephant Kills Girl With Rock At Morocco Zoo

Experts at a zoo in the Moroccan capital of Rabat are trying to understand why an elephant hurled a stone toward visitors, killing a 7-year-old girl.

The behaviour of the female elephant was "abnormal'' and needs to be understood, a veterinarian at the zoo said Friday.

The girl was visiting the Zoological Garden of Rabat with her family on Tuesday, admiring three elephants when one picked up a stone, then tossed it more than 10 metres (yards) over a huge ditch and a wooden barrier toward the visitors. The girl was struck in the head and died hours later.

'Wild animals are unpredictable'

The elephant exhibit has been temporarily closed, zoo veterinarian Abderahim Salhi said by telephone. He said that zoo personnel remained in shock three days later at what he called an "unforeseeable accident.''

"The behaviour ... of any animal is very complex,'' he said, "and wild animals are unpredictable.''

"We are all surprised. We don't yet understand,'' Salhi said.

The zoo, which opened in 2012 on the edge of Rabat, was designed to show animals living in replicas of their natural habitat — but with no direct contact with visitors, Salhi said. Stones are plentiful inside the elephant habitat, as they would be in their natural surroundings.

"We are very sad at what happened, but it would be wrong to blame the elephant. This was not premeditated,'' said Salma Slimani, in charge of zoo administration.

"We are very sad at what happened, but it would be wrong to blame the elephant."