Capture of wild elephants
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.