Johor health and environment committee chairman Ling Tian Soon (left) petting an elephant that way brought in as a symbolic for the launch of the operation here. Looking on is Perhilitan director-general Datuk Abdul Kadir Abu Hashim (centre) and Kahang R. Vidyananthan (right).
KLUANG: A special operation has been launched by the Wildlife and National Parks Department (Perhilitan) to translocate 25 elephants across Peninsular Malaysia in a bid to reduce human-elephant conflicts.
Its director-general Datuk Abdul Kadir Abu Hashim said Johor, one of the states most affected by such conflicts, would be the first to carry out the operation.
"The operation officially begins this month, with Johor being the first state to carry it out with the support of about 30 Perhilitan officers from across the peninsula.
"It will then continue in other states affected by the conflict, and we expect to translocate about 25 wild elephants by July next year," he said, adding that Johor Perhilitan is the main coordinator of the operation.
He said this to reporters after launching the Johor Elephant Translocation Operation here on Monday (July 14).
Also present at the launch were Johor health and environment committee chairman Ling Tian Soon, Kahang assemblyman R. Vidyananthan, and Johor Perhilitan director Aminuddin Jamin.
Abdul Kadir added that the operation would also involve the Elephant Capture Unit from the National Elephant Conservation Centre (NECC) in Kuala Gandah, as well as other agencies.
"One of the main objectives of the operation is to systematically reduce elephant conflicts in high-risk areas.
"It will also help us identify and relocate elephant groups that are actively disturbing agricultural areas, villages, and residential zones.
"We also hope to collect scientific data through this operation to improve policies for managing wild elephants," he said.
He said that between 2020 and 2024, Perhilitan received some 4,920 elephant-human related complaints.
"This led to losses amounting to about RM39.4mil with Johor, Kelantan, Pahang, Perak and Terengganu being states that were most affected," he said.
