Capture of wild elephants
Text and photos by Rama S.
SUKARAJA, Lampung (JP): The news of the two wild elephants spread rapidly, and nearby villagers flocked to Sukaraja village in Teluk Semangka subdistrict, South Lampung, to see them.
On Friday, July 19, one of the wild elephants was seen feasting on banana plants in the back yard of a villager's house.
People gathered around despite efforts by four officials of South Bukit Barisan National Park to stop them. A man named Mat Jahari, 59, of Kacapura village, was there too.
"I want to see the elephant's face," he said. He went near the elephant and stopped three meters in front of the beast.
No one knows what possessed him. Jahari threw some cocoa beans in the elephant's face, and quite suddenly, the elephant angrily charged Jahari and threw him some distance away, crushing the old man's chest and stomach. Jahari died instantly.
The crowd panicked. They ran off in all directions. The seemingly tame elephant had suddenly changed into a fearsome monster. The wild elephant kept moving from one place to another, destroying the villagers' crops.
The incident prompted Iman Muchroji, Kacapura village head, to send a letter to the Lampung Natural Resources Conservation Agency. Muchroji reported the tragic incident and asked the agency to capture the wild elephant.
Agency head Harianto Wahyu Soekoco responded by sending a team for the capture and handling of wild elephants to the site. On Monday of July 22 seven elephant tamers of the Way Kambas Elephant Training Center arrived: Nazaruddin, 30, Sumardi, 29, Sugeng, 29, Supriono, 32, Eko Siswadi, 22, Didik, 27, and Sugianto, 22. Two tame elephants, Sentong and Mandra, were in their company.
It took the team, led by veterinarian Yani, one day to capture the two wild elephants.
The two newly-captured elephants are the biggest ever caught in Lampung, perhaps in the whole of Indonesia. The elephants will be tamed and trained at the Way Kambas Elephant Training Center. Elephants trained at the center are then sent to zoos and timber companies in Indonesia.
The question is, will wild elephants, which are a nuisance to man, continue to receive such treatment? People seem to ignore the fact that they enter human habitats because of human destruction of their habitat.
There are only about 250 elephants left in Way Kambas and another 150 in the South Bukit Barisan National Park. Their number will continue to dwindle, given man's continuing invasion of their habitat.