Elephants 'playing hide-and-seek' with Sabah wildlife rangers

A file picture of Borneo pygmy elephants looking for food along the Kinabatangan river in Sabah on Feb 19, 2009. - Reuters/Bazuki Muhammad

KOTA KINABALU: Sabah wildlife rangers are having trouble locating 40 Borneo Pygmy Elephants which encroached into a plantation in Lahad Datu near here, in their efforts to lead the herd back into the jungle.

The herd of elephants, one of which was injured by a snare trap, have split up and are literally playing and "hide and seek" as rangers together with plantation workers try to stop the animals from destroying newly-planted and young oil palm trees in the plantation.