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The ‘elfie’: elephant grabs BC man’s GoPro, takes a photo

the elfie

UBC student Christian LeBlanc, 22, spent the last semester on an exchange program in Bangkok, Thailand.

About two months ago, he and his girlfriend, Laura Reid, stopped at an elephant sanctuary on the side of the road on Koh Phangan Island, bought a basket of bananas and started feeding an elephant.

When he ran out of the snack, however, the elephant turned its attention to LeBlanc’s GoPro camera.

“I didn’t even have time to think. It all happened so fast,” LeBlanc told CBC News.

“I was taking photos and feeding the elephant bananas until I ran out of bananas and the elephant grabbed my GoPro while the camera was set to ‘timelapse,’” LeBlanc wrote to Global News in an email. “This allowed the camera continuous shooting and enabled it to take the ‘elphie’! Couldn’t believe it when I saw how well the photo turned out.”

In the well-framed photo, both LeBlanc and the elephant appear to be posing for the camera.

When he posted the elephant’s self portrait on Instagram, it almost instantly became a viral hit.

"I’m still in shock that it turned out that way. I’m in shock that this story has gone viral. It’s been a pretty crazy two days,” said LeBlanc, adding that he hopes his story inspires people to travel, even on a small budget.

“I can’t guarantee an elephant selfie, but it’s very easy to make it to this side of the world,“ he told CBC News.

See more of LeBlanc’s travels on his Instagram account.

Earlier this year, a photographer lost a battle with Wikipedia over the rights to an amazing monkey selfie. (It turns out that if you’re a human, and an animal takes a selfie with your camera, you probably don’t own the copyright to the photograph.)