Take Down Rampaging Elephants with Automatic Entangling Leg-Cords, Star Wars Style

Monday, November 23, 2009 - 17:56 in Biology & Nature

A Mumbai engineer's "violent elephant control gear" will safeguard against beasts run amok Who you gonna call when a normally placid pachyderm decides to act out? Enter Zachariah Matthew, a Mumbai engineer who created a remote-controlled immobilizing device to handle elephants on a rampage. The "Violent Elephant Control Gear" takes the form of a 16-pound box fitted to the rear leg of an elephant. A human controller can press a remote device button to trigger a power cord that shoots out and ensnares the other rear leg of the elephant. Matthew's invention can supposedly restrain elephants weighing as much as 2 tons. A spokesman told The Daily Telegraph that the commercial launch will price it at a little more than $664 (or £400 or 30,000 rupees). The device is also billed as a more surefire method for stopping rampaging elephants, as opposed to the current approach of shooting the elephants with anesthetic darts...

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