Dozens of elephants killed in Riau

Dozens of elephants killed in Riau

Haidir Anwar Tanjung, The Jakarta Post, Pekanbaru, Riau

Twenty-six elephants have been killed in Riau province over the
last year for a variety of reasons, particularly because their
habitat has been shrinking due to development, an NGO activist
has said.

"The actual number killed in Riau might be much greater than
that because many elephant deaths went unreported," said Harizal
Jalil, the director of Tropical, a local non-governmental
organization (NGO) here on Saturday.

He expressed concern that many forested areas had been lost to
plantation, which had limited the elephants' habitat.

As it shrank, elephants often left their habitat to seek food,
and, as a result, contact between humans and elephants became
more frequent, he said.

In many cases, the contact turned ugly, and caused the death
of the elephants.

He warned that the number of elephants in Sumatra,
particularly in Riau province, would continue to diminish if
action were not taken by the government to overcome problems
faced by the beasts.

In 1993, the elephant population in Sumatra was only 2,800 to
4,800 animals. Some 1,000 of the total lived in an elephant
conservation area.

He said that the number could decrease rapidly as the killing
of elephants had become more frequent in the last 10 years. In
1996, for example, 12 elephants were found dead in a plantation
area in Kuantan Singingi regency, Riau, after they had been
poisoned by unidentified parties.

Ramlan Zas, the regent of Rokan Hilir Hulu, Riau, also
acknowledged that the shrinking habitat was the main cause of
death of elephants.

"As their habitat shrinks, they often attack dwellings,
prompting people to kill them," he said on Saturday.

However, human-elephant contact also resulted in the death of
humans.

Harizal said that at least five Riau residents had been killed
by elephants in 2003. The latest victim was a woman from Rokan
Hulu regency, killed by an elephant on Thursday.

Another incident occurred in September, when a married couple
were killed after they were attacked by an elephant in Pandan
Wangi, Indragiri regency, Riau.

"They were tapping rubber when suddenly they were attacked by
an elephant," said Nurcholis Fadli, a human-elephant conflict
mitigation officer at the Worldwide Fund for Nature in Riau.

John Kennedy, head of the Riau Natural Resources Conservation
Body, said that his institution was seeking the right location to
accommodate wild elephants from Riau province.

However, he conceded that relocating them was no easy task,
adding that it would be expensive to do so.