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.
3 comments:
Thanks for the article and good info to share.
My other side of KLK frds especially at Lahad datu,Sabah, had this problem before. Initially quite seriousand had sleeppless night.Latelly manage it very well.
They did :
1.Elec fencing with the approval of wild life Dpt.
2.Plus trenching of atleast min 2 meter wide at next to the fencing and try to direct or divert to nearest river.
3.Being an Indian, we belief elephant have strong desire,memory power and always we have strong respect etc.
So my friends told the workers stop teasing the entire elephants(becouse the local there belief the elep has strong hearing power) and and can hear thing from a few km distance. They start offering foods eg sugarcane,banana etc at boundary fringe(only apply to the those who belief),not necessary a must.
What a screwed up management. Elephant electrical fencing or trenching could have prevented this and wouldn't have caused the estate half million ringgit in losses. You were right I was also wondering whether they have installed such preventive fencing. In Malaysia , a manager can easily get himself a gun license, at least with the gun it would deter arbitrary encroachments of these elephants.The report did not emphasize what triggered the elephants to encroach and how they entered the property.I would suggest there was sort of complacent attitude going on down there since at the point of massive losses they have yet to get the Wildlife Department in, I just hope they would have resolved this problem by today.
Can't blame the elephants. Man has encroached into their territory and they've no way else to go. Wild life is being pushed further and further with the opening up of more virgin jungles for plantations and development. Nowadays one can see many monkeys sitting by the side of roads or swinging on the electric wires. Once when I was driving home from Raub to Lipis, I encountered a family of 5 wildboars crossing the road.The biggest one leading the way and the smallest at the back. Another time, I saw a big wildboar running as I was driving back to my house in Taman Lipis. Even my brother-in-law (my wife's elder bro.)once was knocked by a wildboar as he was working at the back of his house in Taman Lipis. Back in 1994 when I was the headmaster in Benta Sec. School, wild monkeys used to come to the canteen to steal food.
One Saturday when I was in school, I saw about a hundred wild monkeys on the school field. Bc the students were not around, the monkeys had a field day to themselves. Unfortunately, I didn't have my camera with me, otherwise I would have a fantastic photo to show. People were sceptical when I told them about the monkeys. In their minds, I must be spinning a tall story, but it's true. Those days, the digital camera wasn't in existence yet. That's why I used to carry a digital camera in my pocket nowadays just in case something interesting spring up unexpectedly.
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