ELEPHANT moments on Phuket can be touching or terror-filled. Most of us can only imagine the horror of being on the back of a rampaging elephant, at risk of being brushed off by low-hanging branches, or trampled underfoot with one or two stamps.

Yet big though they may be and potentially creatures with wild eyes bent on destruction, elephants are loved by virtually everyone.

I remember parking a car at Laguna Phuket one day and surprising a baby elephant. It trotted over and thrust its trunk in the open passenger's window, rummaging around, looking for food or fun.

Visitors have also spent hours in the sea at Phuket's Bang Tao at the right time of day, surfing with the Laguna elephants, jumping off their broad backs, delighting in the intimate contact.

A 63-year-old Swiss mother died in a rampage on a trek in a park north of Phuket this week, while her best friend and her husband, who survived, will probably relive the trauma over and over again.

Now readers tell us of two young elephants that are tethered for long periods on a patch of concrete as a come-on for a Phuket souvenir shop.

Is it fair to say that an elephant who is badly treated in infancy may bear a grudge that results in the death of an innocent person at some stage later in life?

It may never be possible to know for sure, but elephants are usually so calm and collected. Perhaps it's time, though, that males were no longer used on tourist treks.

The killing this week was the second rampage in the Phuket region in the space of 13 months.

While the first rampage last January by a male on Phuket did not bring any fatalities, the animal involved overturned cars and a Swedish man was seriously injured when he jumped for his life.

Having broken his heels, and with the rest of the party having fled to safety, he could only lie on the ground wondering what his fate was going to be.

The elephant, trumpeting loudly, rampaged madly on. Later, when the dust had settled, literally, Dr Jirayu Niranwiroj, a veterinarian from Phuket's Department of Livestock Development, told us: ''This kind of incident is rare, but mature male elephants can be a problem from time to time.

''There's usually one month every year, depending on the elephant, where male elephants will start to misbehave. It can start about the age of 12 and continue until they are 20 or so.

''Most of the elephants on the island, though, are never a problem.''

That's because the vast majority are female. Two of the three elephants on the killer trek through Khao Sak National Park yesterday were male.

In the Phuket incident just over a year earlier, it was only by chance that two men were riding Captain, the rampaging elephant.

It could just as easily have been children, Swede Hanna Agnarsson told Phuketwan at her husband Gustav's bedside in Phuket International Hospital, where he was bedridden with his broken heels.

The elephant that rampaged this week and killed the Swiss woman was Buki, aged 21. A local veterinarian, Piya Naktongkul, told Phuketwan that Buki and the other two elephants involved would be kept in separate compounds to calm down while their futures were considered.

With two incidents involving rampaging male elephants and tourists in the space of 13 months and the death of a Swiss woman, we'd suggest that tour companies would be wise to ban male elephants entirely from treks.

If the tour companies prove less sensible than they should be, tourists will in future make a judgement for themselves about whether they love elephants enough to risk riding on a male.