Determined elephant just won't give up

Electric New Paper

June 05, 2008

THEY thought their job was almost done. Shoot the rogue elephant with a tranquiliser dart and wait for it to drop.

But Malaysia's Department of Wildlife and National Parks (Perhilitan) team suffered a momentary scare when one of two wild elephants pulled out the dart with its trunk.

Sent to Segamat, Johor to capture the two beasts, Perhilitan's elephant capture unit started searching for the pair of wild male elephants on 21 May, reported China Press.

And just a week later, they found them, running wild in an orchard.

Yesterday morning, Perhilitan dispatched 24 workers and a pair of trained female elephants to apprehend the rogue pair.

Both elephants were missing tusks - the older one had none while the younger elephant had only one.

The tuskless elephant posed no trouble as the team led it out of the orchard. It only took 30 minutes before it was coaxed on to a lorry.

But the one-tusked elephant, though it was smaller, was not so gullible.

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