DUNGUN: A farmer in Kampung Kuala Jengai suffered losses of about RM20,000 after a wild elephant damaged his coconut plantation in the early hours.
Mohd Marzuki Saat, 67, said the wild elephant is believed to have entered his plantation at around 2am yesterday, destroying 34 four-year-old coconut trees that had begun bearing fruit this year.
“This is the first time I have experienced such an incident since I started cultivating coconuts in 2022. The elephant knocked down part of the electric fence installed around the plantation before entering and damaging my crops,” he told Bernama at Kampung Kuala Jengai.
Marzuki said he has planted a total of 450 coconut trees of various types on the 2.4ha plantation.
Kuala Jengai village development and security committee chairman Che Ku Rahimi Che Ku Mat Salleh said the incident had been reported to the Terengganu Department of Wildlife and National Parks (Perhilitan) to enable immediate action to be taken.
Terengganu Perhilitan director Dennis Ten Choon Yung said the department received reports of the incident on July 13, and investigations found that the wild elephant had likely strayed from the nearby Besol Forest Reserve, about 500m from the village.
He said Perhilitan officers are monitoring the area to track the elephant, drive it back into the forest and prevent similar incidents from recurring.
