1 Comment
People get text message alerts for all kinds of things these days -- from precipitous Dow drops to when the Red Sox are nearing elimination from the postseason -- but now SMS alerts are being used for more pressing needs, like helping folks avoid animal attacks.

Rangers in Kenya have recently hooked up elephants' collars with mobile phone SIM cards that send out text message alerts to nearby authorities when pachyderms step outside of prescribed areas and close to the farms and villages. Once the alert goes out, the rangers are then able to use spotlights to frighten the elephants back into their 90,000-acre preserve.

The system was devised by an animal-protection group that was concerned about a number of shootings that had resulted from elephant crop raiding.

Of course, Asylum is hoping these text alerts spread to the States, so we can start to live without the constant fear of bears.

Are you scared of elephants and bears? You will be after checking out the gallery below ...



Deadly Animal Attacks

    In 2004, Orange County, Cal. mountain biker Mark Reynolds was attacked and killed by a 110-pound mountain lion while knelt over trying to fix his bike's chain. Later in the same day, the big cat pounced on another biker and had its jaws on her head when other cyclists came to her rescue. The animal was later put down by rangers.

    Jason Edwards, National Geographic / Getty Images

    There are less than 4,000 of these giant lizards on Komodo, living alongside the 1,200 human residents of the island. Thirty-three years had passed without incident before an 8-year-old boy got too close to a Komodo Dragon in June 2007, shattering the seemingly harmonious coexistence.

    Fox Photos / Getty Images

    Hippos are not the cute animals many perceive them to be. They are extremely territorial, especially when in rut (a state of sexual excitement). In 1999, a horny hippopotamus mistook a tractor for a female and trampled a Parisian zoo director en route to the seductive machinery.

    George Nikitin, San Francisco Zoo / AP

    Sometimes an animal's rage only really comes out when it's a bit tipsy. Drunk off villagers' rice beer, a pack of elephants trampled six people in the northeast Indian state of Assam in 2002. "It has been noticed that elephants have developed a taste for rice beer and local liquor and they always look for it when they invade villages," explained an elephant expert after the incident.

    Henry Guttmann, Getty Images

    Between July 1 and July 12, 1916, five people were attacked by sharks along the New Jersey shoreline, and only one survived. The Jersey Shore shark attacks of 1916 would later inspire Peter Benchley to write the novel "Jaws."

    Torsten Blackwood, AFP / Getty Images

    In 2006, chimps attacked and killed an employee of the Tacugama Chimpanzee Sanctuary in Sierra Leone. The chimpanzees also roughed up some American and Canadian workers. Word is they were docile moments before they flew into a rage, biting and tearing at the clothes of anyone within striking distance.

    Professor Val Plumwood was famous in her native Australia for surviving the death roll of a saltwater crocodile, an extremely rare feat. She was not, however, able to survive the attack of a snake. The naturalist is believed to have been bitten a few days before being found dead on her property.

    Mark Sullivan, WireImage.com

    "Crocodile Hunter" Steve Irwin wrestled his nick-namesake and generally palled around with some nasty critters, but it was a seemingly benign stingray that took out the star of TV and movies. The animal's barb pierced Irwin's chest while he and his crew were shooting a documentary in 2006.

    Rubberball

    Though they haven't killed anyone yet, Australian farmers have recently starting voicing their concerns about hybrid wild dogs . Apparently, when a canine reaches 21 kilos, it has the ability to kill creatures its own weight and above to survive. Farmers say the dogs are currently at 19.5 kilos and growing larger.

    Grey Villet, Time Life Pictures / Getty Images

    Humans are fascinated by big cats, making the animals a major draw for zoos. One 4-year-old Siberian tiger at the San Francisco zoo didn't like all the crowd-pleasing, so it leaped over a 13-foot wall and killed one zoo patron, then mauled two others on Christmas Day of 2007.

    AP