Antara News, Friday, March 19, 2010 01:04 WIB
Bengkalis (ANTARA News) - A herd of hungry wild elephants have been occupying two residential areas of Petani village, Bengkalis, Riau, over the past two weeks forcing tens of families to flee their homes.
Petani village residents said the elephants were still in their part of the village on Thursday but their number had dropped from initially 45 to a few.
"For the past two weeks we have been staying in the homes of people in another part of our village located far from where the elephants are," one of the displaced inhabitants of Petani village , Raya (45), said.
He said he and his fellow villagers had made no effort to drive the animals away because they were afraid it would make the giant mammals only more aggressive and attack them.
Petani village head Riantono admitted he could not do much for his people but had appealed to them to be alert to the danger the wild beasts posed, especially at night.
He said he had also asked his people to watch out in the afternoon because the animals could come at any time and tear apart their houses to find food.
"As village head I do not know what I have to do. I can only make appeals. We cannot kill them because, if we do, we will get into trouble with the law," he said.
Local environment activists meanwhile said no concrete actions had been taken so far by the authorities to prevent conflicts between humans and elephants in Bengkalis.
"The problem has so far been only talked about while no concrete actions have been taken by the government or agencies concerned," Simamora, the chief of the Care for Nature and Environment Community Movement, said.
He said, if the problem remained unsolved, it was not impossible the local people would fight the elephants in their own way , and then fatalities could happen on either side. Many people had already been killed in clashes with the animals.
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