Man Killed By Elephants Was Frequent Wyoming Hunter, Close Friends With Outfitter

A California man who was killed by elephants while on safari in Africa was a frequent hunter in Wyoming and close friends with a Douglas outfitter. Dax McCarty said the media portrayal of his friend is wrong. “He dang sure respected animals,” McCarty said.

California vineyard owner Ernie Dosio loved hunting in Wyoming and became close friends with McCarty. According to what McCarty was told by Dosio’s family, Dosio died almost instantly when he was gored by a cow elephant on April 17 in Gabon, central Africa. Dosio and his party were not hunting elephants; they were hunting duiker, a small antelope. They encountered a group of cow elephants and their calves in thick cover, and the elephants charged. One of the professional hunters (PH) guiding Dosio was severely injured.

McCarty said Dosio has been described in reports as a “millionaire trophy hunter,” which is not fair or accurate. “Ernie would never let you know how much money he had,” McCarty said. Dosio was an ethical hunter who respected animals. After his Wyoming hunts, “he would pay to have every animal he killed processed. He would take the meat home and either eat it or hand it out to families that he knew needed it.” Meat from animals he shot in Africa was given to local villages.

Scott Weber of Cody has been on numerous safari hunts. He and his party were charged by an enraged elephant in Zimbabwe in May 2025. It took four shots from heavy rifles to bring it down, falling dead just feet from a PH. “I shook for, like, six hours afterward. It was terrifying,” he said. Outdoorsman Guy Eastman of Cody said the legendary “elephant’s memory” is real. He recalled elephants in Tanzania “going absolutely nuts” when they saw a white vehicle because years before, rangers in white vehicles had tranquilized them and taken their babies.

Eastman likened wild elephants to a combination of Wyoming’s grizzlies and bison. “They are as aggressive as our grizzlies and as capable as our buffalo,” he said. Elephants are fast and surprisingly stealthy. “You can be in the thickest brush and they can move through silently. Just like a grizzly bear, all of a sudden they’re right on you.”

McCarty said running into elephants while hunting another species is like running into a grizzly while hunting elk in Wyoming. Elephants often “bluff charge,” especially with young, like a mother grizzly. On the day he was killed, Dosio was carrying a shotgun—adequate for duiker but useless against an elephant. The party included two PH guides with heavy rifles. They backed away and were initially bluff charged, but the elephants kept coming. One PH was gashed across the chest by a tusk. The other tried to push Dosio behind a tree, but he was gored and killed.

Weber said the elephant that charged his party in 2025 came out of nowhere. After it was killed, they discovered a few feet of its trunk missing—possibly from a poacher’s snare. “Maybe that elephant equated people with its suffering,” he said. While examining the carcass, “here comes another cow, with a calf, to get us.” He plans another safari in 2027. “The shit gets deep over there, man, and you have to do whatever the PH says,” he said.