An elephant sale of a different color
JAKARTA (JP): Psst. Wanna buy an elephant? It's available for Rp 7.5 million ($3,600) a piece and it comes complete with its trainer.
As part of the government's drive to contain the elephant problem, the Ministry of Forestry is now offering 184 elephants, tamed ones rather than wild, to forestry concessionaires and plantation companies in the hope that they will be employed to help transport or move bulky material.
"Their power is one fourth of the power of a tractor," Tonny Soehartono, head of the Flora and Fauna Conservation office at the Ministry of Forestry, told journalists on Saturday. He did not specify what tractor he had in mind.
The elephants have been tamed and trained at special schools in Lampung, Aceh and Bengkulu, for at least six months and they are ready to work hard, said Tonny as he changed his bureaucrat cap to that of a salesman.
Given that an elephant's normal life span could reach 70 years, buyers are almost guaranteed with long service and dedication. These trained elephants are aged 10 years or slightly older.
The Ministry of Forestry has been preoccupied in recent years with how to deal with elephants, a protected species by law but increasingly becoming a menace as they repeatedly raid villages in various parts of Sumatra.
Some of the attacks at times were fatal and so destructive that some officials have even suggested killing the elephants, whose numbers are now increasing because they are a protected species.
Officials and environmentalists say that the attacks occurred because the elephants are increasingly being forced out of their natural habitat by the increasing rate of development in Sumatra.
The Ministry of Forestry, whose task also includes overseeing the protection of endangered species, however is opposed to the suggestion of killing the elephants and is still insisting that the best possible way out is to tame and train them and then employ them.
One package
Director of Conservation Program of the Ministry of Forestry Effendy A. Sumardja said the government is offering both the elephants and the coaches in one package. "If you are interested in the elephant, you have to hire the coach as well," Sumardja said, adding that the buyer must pay the coach higher than his current salary.
The Ministry began touting the elephants last year but has found few takers.
Only one plantation company and three forest estate firms have taken up the offer, according to Sumardja.
"I wonder why people are reluctant to take up the offer?" Sumardja said. "Should the president himself be involved in the elephant management? Wouldn't that be too much?" he said.
Elephants are fast learners, an intelligent species which can be of use to human beings, Sumardja said as he too put on his salesman cap.
He pointed out that the Safari Park in nearby Bogor uses elephants to pick up garbage every morning before the start of the day.
He admitted that care of the elephants is not easy. An elephant needs 200 kilograms of food and 100 liters of water every day. It is also necessary to regularly check their health.
Asked on the proposal to kill the troublesome elephants, Sumardja said that the law forbids it unless they are a threat to human lives. "This, however, will be a last option."
Sumardja said Indonesia would not mind giving away the elephants to foreign countries which need them, providing they fulfill the requirements. He stressed that an elephant is not a commercial commodity.
The ministry is considering a request from a Japanese zoo for a pair of baby elephants.
There are some 4,000 elephants roaming in 44 different locations in Riau, Jambi, Lampung, South Sumatra and Bengkulu. About 700 have strayed outside their natural habitat and these are the ones who have been rampaging villages. (sim)