GUA MUSANG, (Bernama) - A company, which has been awarded a contract to plant oil palms near Pos Blau here, suffered huge losses when 18,000 of the one-year-old palm trees in the 600 hectare plantation were destroyed by elephants since a month ago.Syarikat Pembangunan Ladang Khazanah Nadi Alam Enterprise manager, Mohd Khazanah Ab Rahman estimated the company losses at almost RM500,000.
He said a herd of five elephants entered the plantation almost every night and destroyed the oil palm trees, as well as banana trees grown as cash crop at the plantation.
The elephants had destroyed about 10,000 of the 75,000 banana trees in the plantation, he told Bernama here.
Mohd Khazanah said workers at the plantation had taken various measures, including burning old tyres at night, to keep away the elephants, but were futile, adding that replanting of the oil palms would be carried out only after the pachyderm returned to the forest area.
He said the attacks by the elephants also caused the 60 workers at the plantation to fear for their safety.
Until now, the pachyderm had not gone near the workers’ “kongsi” (quarters) and the workers also took turns to keep watch every night, he added.
He hoped that efforts would be made by the Wildlife and National Parks Department to catch the elephants.
– BERNAMA
Just wonder whether any electric fence put up to deter elephant intrusion? Some plantations even dug trenches as a double precaution in addition to electric fencing along the perimeter along the jungle edge.
