Department denies safety of rangers and pachyderm at risk

Big move: The Sabah wildlife rescue team helped to translocate the wild elephant to a protected forest reserve some 200km from Kampung Bauto in Telupid.

KOTA KINABALU: The Sabah Wildlife Department is seeing red over photographs being circulated on social media that an elephant was purportedly “abused” while being translocated.

Department director William Baya said the photograph of the translocation exercise was that of a rogue bull elephant that had damaged crops of villagers at Kampung Bauto in the east Telupid district in February last year.