Dhurbe the wild elephant primarily lives in Nepal’s Chitwan National Park, but travelled outside of its usual appetite to hunt down and kill members of Shanichara Bote’s family
An infamous killer elephant stalked a man and murdered four members of his family over a 14-year period – even after they moved miles away to escape its wrath.
Dhurbe, a wild elephant that inhabits the Chitwan National Park in Nepal, is one of the South East Asian nation’s most notorious killers. Between 2009 and 2026, the parading pachyderm has reportedly killed 25 people and destroyed more than 50 houses. It’s been declared a mad elephant, and been the subject of a kill order for more than a decade.
Dhurbe’s wrath appeared to have been especially reserved for Shanichara Bote, who lost four of his family members to the serial killer elephant since 2012.
Speaking to the Kathmandu Post, Mr Bote said his first encounter with Dhurbe was back in 2012 when his parents were trampled to death by the elephant in the town of Madi, near the national park where he resides. Terrified by the shock encounter, the dad packed off the rest of his family to safety miles away.
But even after settling in a new homestead across the Rapti River in Jagatpur, nearly 20 miles away, he was unable to shake the elephant off his scent. Dhurbe found his way back to Mr Bote and burst into the dad’s family home, killing his daughter-in-law Ashika, 25, and four-year-old grandson Bharat.
The grieving dad told the post that they were left with “nowhere to run” after the horror double killing. He said: “We believed that moving across the major rivers would keep us safe. But after all these years, the exact same elephant found us again, raided our home and took my daughter-in-law and my little grandson. There is nowhere left for us to run.”
Mr Bote is not the only one whose life has been upended thanks to the rampaging elephant, who officials said had claimed nearly two dozen lives before the devastated dad lost four of his family members.
Abinash Thapa Magar, a representative for Chitwan National Park, said: “Prior to this tragic incident, Dhurbe had officially claimed 23 human lives.
“With these latest two casualties in Jagatpur, the confirmed number of fatalities attributed to this single elephant has now risen to 25. We have been utilising a satellite tracking collar to monitor the movements of this highly aggressive male elephant. Our data logs show that this location coordinates were pinned directly around the perimeter of the incident site on [July 4].”
Dhurbe is constantly tracked with a fitted collar that pings his location every hour, but the device has failed to step the raging beast from carrying out additional attacks.
