Sabah now looking at long-term elephant conflict solution

The six-week elephant invasion in one of Sabah’s interior districts has compelled state authorities to look into long-term solutions that can prevent such human-wildlife conflicts in the future.

Sabah Tourism, Culture and Environment Minister Datuk Masidi Manjun said the conflict has become a major cause of concern that has to be addressed in the long term.

“I have asked the director of wildlife to give a briefing this week. We recognise the fact that it’s a real problem and we are going to discuss the options available to us,” he said.

A herd of about 20 elephants caused damage to crops and human property in some 10 villages around the Telupid district, while others have reportedly casually strolled through school grounds and wandered into the district police station.

The Sabah Wildlife Department and Wildlife Rescue Unit have been on a 24-hour watch trying to ensure that the animals do not come into close contact with humans.

Wildlife Rescue Unit acting manager Diana Ramirez said that they have so far captured six elephants as of now that are meant for relocation in a wildlife reserve.

“I think the fact that all these incidents that happened in the last one week or month should make us think hard about the options that are available to us, not only to solve it now, but for the long term,” said Masidi.

“All of us the stakeholders need to sit down and work out the solutions. We can’t forever be doing things on an ad hoc basis,” he said, adding that the authorities will meet later this week to discuss the matter before bringing in the stakeholders.

Another challenge is the high cost of translocation at RM20,000 to RM30,000 per elephant.

Elephant and human conflict has been on the rise in recent years as Sabah’s vast forests have been converted into agricultural land or opened up to development.

Biologists predicted the increase in such conflict but little has been done to create wildlife corridors for elephants and other animals which are used to roaming freely over large areas without restriction.

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Wild Elephants ‘can Inflict Harm on Plantations.’ So What to Do?

Millions of ringgit in losses over an area of 30 hectares. That’s how much damage a herd of feeding elephants can inflict on a plantation, according to the Sabah Wildlife Department. In just a single night elephants can destroy six hectares of crops, the department’s head Augustine Tuuga explained.

“Elephant raids are a major problem for plantations in areas where elephants are found,” the director was quoted as saying by Free Malaysia Today. “These herds damage oil palm trees and eat the shoots, causing the companies to incur big losses.” He cited the case of Sabah Softwood Bhd, which lost property estimated to be worth RM3 million to elephants.

None of this is in any doubt. Even a single elephant, which fully grown can weigh 3 tons and consume as much as 200kg of food in a single day, can decimate crops by feeding on much of them, uprooting trees and trampling on a lot of cultivated plants. Several elephants can in turn create havoc. To make matters worse, elephants’ dietary preferences expose them to increased risks of coming into conflict with humans because they may fancy a bite or two of certain cultivated crops.

Yet we have to remember that elephants do not do this out of malice. They simply need to feed. And the only reason why they often barge into cultivated areas like plantations is that they have lost much of their natural feeding grounds in the wild. “The rapid shrinkage of forest cover and large-scale encroachment on elephant corridors are the main factors behind this escalating problem,” explains Mohamed Idris, president of the conservationist group Sahabat Alam Malaysia. “The last decade has seen appalling destruction of forests, something that is having direct effects on wild elephant populations.”

Farmers destroy the pachyderms’ habitats, and then they are angered when elephants show up in their plantations and chew up crops. Sadly, some farmers do not leave it at that and seek to take revenge by shooting or poisoning wild elephants. Such revenge attacks have been going on sporadically for years, in addition to the poaching of wild elephants for their tusks and other body parts. Just a few week ago two pygmy elephants were found dead in Sabah. Their remains were discovered a few days apart in Tawau and Sandakan. The tusks of one had been sawn off.

Sad, that. We need to be more tolerant of wild animals. If they cause harm, our response should not be to lash out in revenge but rather to cultivate forbearance. We need to adopt a live-and-let-live attitude. To foster such attitudes, the government can do its part by compensating farmers for their losses. That way, they will be far less inclined to seek revenge against foraging elephants.

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Villagers In Kedah Shook By Wild Elephants, How Can We Co-Exist With These Gentle Giants?

BALING: Over 900 villagers residing at Kampung Tanjung Pari, Mukim Siong endured a moment of anxiety yesterday (Oct 24), when a herd of elephants were found roaming in the village and subsequently destroying their crops.

The Tanjung Pari Village Development and Security Committee (JKKK) Chairman Taib Man shared with Berita Harian that the villagers refrained from going to the farm as they fear of crossing paths with the wild elephants that are often wondering through the night.

He went on to elaborate that the gentle giants are gradually becoming more daring as they have been incidences where they roam to close to the villagers’ home and destroying their crops such as bananas, rubber trees, jackfruits, sugarcane and coconut.

“Most of the population earn their livelihood as farmers and their fear for wild elephants have cut them off from their source of sustenance,” the chairman lamented.

“We’ve informed the incident to the Department of Wildlife and National Parks (PERHILITAN) in hopes that they will chase the elephants away aside from installing electric fence at elephant routes.”

Meanwhile a 53-year-old resident, Asri Yaacob, said that the elephants move in a huge herd to invade and destroy the villagers’ crops.

“Residents suffer losses, to a point some have forego farming out of fear for the worst,” he conveyed to the Malay daily.

The Kedah PERHILITAN Director Inche Ali @ Muhammad Ali Che Aman stated that his department will take immediate action in the event they receive a report as a means to ensure the public’s safety.

“The elephants will be chased away as a means to avoid any more property loses as well as to put an end to anything that threatens the villagers’ safety,” he said.

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Plantations in Sabah losing millions because of elephants

KOTA KINABALU: Oil palm plantations are losing millions from damaged crops, sometimes spanning 30 hectares in total, when elephant herds raid the area, says the Sabah Wildlife Department.
Its director Augustine Tuuga told FMT that smallholders were hit the hardest as they could sometimes lose up to six hectares of crops in just one night.

“Elephant raids are a major problem for plantations in areas where elephants are found.
“These herds damage oil palm trees and eat the shoots, causing the companies to incur big losses,” he said, adding that Sabah Softwood Bhd for example, reported a loss of RM3 million a few years back.

He said that the problem of elephant raids had become so dire that most of the department’s ground staff were in Kg Gambaron in Telupid to deal with the issue, bringing to a virtual standstill, investigations into the recent case of suspected poaching in Kinabatangan.
The department estimated that there were only 2,000 Borneo pygmy elephants left in Sabah and although the number was considered acceptable to many, Tuuga said he was cautious about their survival rates if poaching continued unabated.

He conceded that most of the elephant poachers were locals, who killed the endangered animals mainly for their tusks.

“We found that these tusks were sold overseas but many also sold them to the Timorese who have a custom of offering elephant tusks as dowries.”

On Thursday, the department released a statement that it was investigating suspected poaching activities after an elephant carcass was found floating in the Kinabatangan River near Sg Koyah on Monday.

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Plantations in Sabah losing millions because of elephants

KOTA KINABALU: Oil palm plantations are losing millions from damaged crops, sometimes spanning 30 hectares in total, when elephant herds raid the area, says the Sabah Wildlife Department.
Its director Augustine Tuuga told FMT that smallholders were hit the hardest as they could sometimes lose up to six hectares of crops in just one night.

“Elephant raids are a major problem for plantations in areas where elephants are found.

“These herds damage oil palm trees and eat the shoots, causing the companies to incur big losses,” he said, adding that Sabah Softwood Bhd for example, reported a loss of RM3 million a few years back.

He said that the problem of elephant raids had become so dire that most of the department’s ground staff were in Kg Gambaron in Telupid to deal with the issue, bringing to a virtual standstill, investigations into the recent case of suspected poaching in Kinabatangan.

The department estimated that there were only 2,000 Borneo pygmy elephants left in Sabah and although the number was considered acceptable to many, Tuuga said he was cautious about their survival rates if poaching continued unabated.

He conceded that most of the elephant poachers were locals, who killed the endangered animals mainly for their tusks.

“We found that these tusks were sold overseas but many also sold them to the Timorese who have a custom of offering elephant tusks as dowries.”

On Thursday, the department released a statement that it was investigating suspected poaching activities after an elephant carcass was found floating in the Kinabatangan River near Sg Koyah on Monday.

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Sabah's jumbo-sized problem in translocating elephant herds

The Sabah Wildlife Department has been working closely with large plantation companies in handling human-elephant conflicts especially, in the east coast of the state.

Department director Augustine Tuuga said, unlike in Peninsular Malaysia where a herd of elephants were moved by trained elephants, the Sabah Wildlife Rescue unit had to use heavy machinery for translocation purposes.

“Those trained elephants are bought from Thailand and India, which require special care that involve higher costs.

“Besides that, (trainers) have to learn foreign languages to give commands to the elephants,” he told the New Straits Times.

Augustine said, however, the translocation method in Sabah involved an estimated cost of RM30,000 per animal.

The cost includes the heavy machinery, allowances for rescue personnel, as well as food for the herd, which can have about 20 or more elephants.

The translocation was made necessary when the “no killing” policy came into effect in 1996. Previously, the authorities had used “elephant bombs” to contain the species.

During the recent Sabah Elephant Film Festival 2017, which was held in conjunction with World Elephant Day, Augustine had said human and elephants here used to live together before the 1960s.

“The villagers in the east coast of Malaysia used to call the elephants as ‘nenek’ (granny) as a gesture of respect for the species.

“When forests were slowly converted into plantations, authorities began to receive reports of damages caused by elephants,” said the director, who had been dealing with wildlife for three decades.

He said at worst, about 100 elephants would gather at one location in one night and cause damages to several acres of plantations.

There had been reports that bees buzzing sounds or light bulbs may be able to ward elephants from getting near to plantations.

Augustine, however, said none of the methods had proven effective to date, as compared to electrical fencing, was can be afforded by big plantation companies and not smallholders.

Meanwhile, Wildlife Rescue Unit veterinarian Dr Laura Benedict said the team had encountered many incidents of elephant herds came too close to places with human population.

“There were incidents of elephants going under stilt houses, which required prompt response to translocate the animals.

“In cases where elephants had died, 32 per cent were poisoned and 16 per cent were suspected being poisoned,” she said, citing among others, the notorious incident where 14 pygmy elephants were killed in the Gunung Rara forest in 2013.

Based on a study by the Sabah Wildlife Department and World Wide Fund for Nature, there were 2,050 Borneo Pygmy elephants about 10 years ago.

There were also reports that elephants were being poached for their tusks, some of which are used as wedding dowry in Indonesia.

However, the recent killing of a female pygmy elephant with multiple gunshots in Kinabatangan remains a mystery as the animal has no tusk.

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