Wild elephants ruin 44 houses in East Aceh

Antara 14 Dec 10;

Banda Aceh, Aceh province (ANTARA News) - At least 44 houses in Serbajadi subdistrict, East Aceh district, were ruined by wild elephants during the past one month, a local source said.

Bukhari Muslim, Ketibung Musara village chief, said on Tuesday the number of wild elephant attacks had increased since November 2010. He said the animals entered human settlements and ruined people`s houses and plantations several times.

Bukhari said local people had become concerned about the wild elephants` attacks
"Fortunately, there have been no casualties so far. But the whole village remains on alert in case the elephants come again," he said adding that several people whose houses were damaged by the elephants had to evacuate and had not yet returned.

Last week, three elephants were found dead in Ketibung Musara village, East Aceh. The elephants seemed to have been killed with poison.

Aceh Province has recorded a total of 99 cases of human-animal conflicts from 2007 to 2009 which have caused some of rare animals such as Sumatran Tiger and Sumatran elephants to perish.

"Due to the human-wildlife conflicts, the number of animals in Aceh has decreased, as wild animals such as elephants were hunted by people," Yakob Ishadamy, head of the Aceh Green Secretariat, said.

There were 33 cases of human-animal conflicts in 2007, 46 cases in 2008 and 30 cases in 2009, he said. People used to take a short-cut by hunting the wild animals, such as elephants and tigers.

In 1996, there were 600-700 elephants in Aceh Province, and the number was estimated to decrease to 350-450 elephants in 2007. The population of elephants in Aceh had depleted by almost 40 percent during 1996-2006. From 2007 to September 2008, 39 elephants were captured or killed, he said.

On Sumatra Island as a whole, the population of elephants was estimated to reach between 2,400 and 2,800 heads in 2007. Some of the elephants lived in small blocks of forests which could not support the survival of elephants in a long term, he said.

The decreasing acreage of forests as habitats for tigers and elephants is also a main factor that helps reduce the number of these rare animals. (*)