I seldom go into forest nowadays after stumbling too often
over elephants. These enamels often come out in a herd of 5 to 6 and if any one
member of the herd feels agitated and threatened; my life flies for the whole
herd can charge head on towards me ironing out almost all vegetation in
between. For those frequent jungle hikers, they would know that it is
exceedingly difficult to move about in a tropical forest; moreover, to run in a
dense forest environment. A 5-ton elephant can already cause a lot of damage!
My pal, Ah Seng resides in Sauk, Kuala Kangsar owns a piece
of oil palm plantation. We used to go into the forest together to search for
medicinal plants. When I visited him during 2005 wanting to invite him to enter
the forest; he declined and he told me he dared not after a foreign worker was
stampeded to death by a herd of wild elephant. This news was known only amongst
the locals only and it is never published in news.
It was said that earlier on, a herd of wild elephants barged
into Ah Seng’s oil palm plantation to find food. After devouring a great amount
of oil palm seeds and created a lot of damages; two of the smaller elephants
felt thirsty and proceeded to a barrel of weed killer to quench their thirst.
Normally the barrel would be covered but the plantation worker might have
forgotten somehow.
Just as when the elephants were about to leave, two young
elephants collapsed onto the ground and died. The other elephants tried to
revive those two but they laid motionlessly as if logs. Realising two of their
young ones were dead, the elephants trumpeted and the sound shook the
plantation. As per norm, those elephants stood guard of the elephant carcases
and refused to leave.
Some foreign workers who stayed in the oil palm plantation
came out to investigate after hearing the commotion. Perhaps condition would
not have worsen if everyone just kept quiet and contacted the wildlife
department. As we all know, most foreign workers are normally oblivious of how
to handle wild animals. So some of those workers started to shout at the
elephants and some started to throw stones at them. That certainly had angered
the alpha male elephant and it started to charge towards those workers. What
else, the workers dispersed and ran for their lives. Unfortunately, one of the
worker tripped and fell. In a split of a second, the male elephant was over
this poor guy and without hesitation, it rose its front feet and crushed him to
death…
While conservationists want to conserve elephants, most of
the farmers don’t. The reason is very simple: wild elephants cause a lot of
damage to their cash crops. Three months’ hard work could be destroyed
overnight; and that translates to invested money loss. No one likes to see
his/her hard earned money flies away including you. Maybe it is time for us to
think if it is that the ‘human’ we want to conserve; or it is in fact the ‘elephant’
we would like to conserve. Personally, I don’t believe both of the men and wild
animals can coexist. Once you come face to face with an elephant ran amok;
perhaps the only thought in your mind would be saving your precious ‘life’…
I'm sure Buddhists wouldn't agree. After all, mankind has been a curse to this planet, we've slaughtered millions of animals on a daily basis as food or as so-called pests or for their ivory and body parts, driven whole species to extinction, destroyed their habitat and polluted the environment, and then complain when animals are only looking for food and doing what animals do.
ReplyDelete