WHEN wildlife takes centre stage in Parliament, it is usually the case of members of parliament engaging in name calling and insult-hurling.But Tuesday in the august house was different. This time the ruckus was about a real jumbo problem.

Several esteemed reps stood up to rant about the long-standing problem of elephants trampling crops and trundling through villages in their constituency.

The incidents of human-elephant conflict, they said, were reaching an unbearable stage.

So destructive were these episodes that Setiu MP Datuk Mohd Jidin Shafee was driven to suggest that if the foreign penembak curi (poachers) were let alone in our forests, the elephant problem could be solved.
But if left to the authorities, the elephant numbers would only grow every year, he complained.

Others, though not so drastic in their demands, grilled the natural resources and environment minister:

Why couldn't they be tamed? Couldn't more be moved, maybe even to the appropriately named Batu Gajah constituency, as one MP cheekily suggested.

This prompted Batu Gajah MP Fong Po Kuan to object and quickly divert the argument to what she termed was the root of the problem -- humans encroaching on elephant habitats.

There are seven states in Peninsular Malaysia that face human-elephant conflicts: Kedah, Perak, Negri Sembilan, Johor, Pahang, Terengganu and Kelantan.

Between 1998 and 2007, an average of 781 cases of human-elephant conflict were recorded each year, say figures from the Biodiversity Conservation Division of the Wildlife and National Parks Department.

Johor gets the highest number of human-elephant conflict complaints -- over 200 a year -- followed by Pahang and Perak.

Why? It could be because these states are still covered by vast forests with active logging operations, says the division.

The total forested area in these three states account for close to 60 per cent of forested areas in the peninsula and their elephant populations are the highest.

But in terms of individual districts, it is Hulu Perak that recorded the highest number of conflict cases -- an average of 130 a year between 2005 and last year.

Hulu Perak is home to the 300,000ha Belum-Temenggor forest, which has been logged for years.

Last year, a 117,500ha portion was gazetted as the Royal Belum State Park but the Temenggor portion continues to be logged.

The previous state government had promised to phase out logging in this area by the end of this year.

Along with such disturbances come land clearing for agriculture and plantations.

Plantations are often on the receiving end of elephants traversing their historical roaming routes.

Conflicts in plantations have been reduced somewhat through the installation of electric fences but some landowners will not use this technique due to the high cost of maintenance, said the department.

But in the majority of cases, the conflict is handled by shoot-and-drive away exercise.

A third measure -- translocation -- is also used but it is the most expensive and dangerous of all.

Between 1974, when the Elephant Translocation Unit was established, and last year, 573 elephants were captured and moved out.

Up to this month, another 19 had been relocated from conflict areas in Perak, Johor, Pahang and Terengganu.

The department has two highly-skilled elephant capture teams at its rescue centre in Kuala Gandah (Pahang) and two teams each in Perak and Terengganu.

Kelantan and Johor have a team each, while Kedah will soon be getting a second team.

In the past, the department culled many problem elephants when trenches and bamboo cannon failed to scare them away from villages and oil palm plantations.

But they would rather try a different tack as they did in Jeli in Kelantan, which suffered repeated elephant raids not too long ago.

A federal grant of RM2.2 million enabled the department to put up electric fencing in several villages there and translocate some elephants from the area.

The department acknowledges that the problem is serious, not just for humans but also for wildlife.

However, in the case of the tapir, it's a real losing battle.

This iconic creature -- their half grey-half white body so perfectly camouflaged against the tarred highways -- are increasingly ending up as roadkill.

Between 2000 and 2006, a total of 26 tapirs were displaced. That's an average of three or four a year.

Last year, that figure shot up to 18. So far this year, more than 10 tapir had wandered out of their forest dwellings.

Tapir have been knocked down by lorries, cars and even trains. Many have been caught in snares and not all have survived the experience.

One tapir that wandered into a home in Kuala Selangor just this week was rescued but died shortly after.

Traumatised by the crowd that surrounded it, the tapir's temperature had risen to such an extent that it inflamed the creature's internal organs.

Khairiah Mohd Shariff, who heads the department's ex-situ conservation division, said the number of displaced tapir was on the rise because its habitat had been damaged by the conversion of forested land to other uses.

In many places, the tapir's habitat is split by major roads and highways.

The division has bred some of the rescued tapir at its centre in Sungai Dusun and released a few back into the wild.

It is working on the genetic mapping of tapir in Malaysia and expanding its rescue centre facilities.

But it is worried about the tapir because there is so little that it can do about its disturbed habitats.