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CNN Live At Daybreak

Displaced Elephants Raid Indonesian Farms

Aired April 22, 2002 - 05:56   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: A terrible story now. Elephants are the giants of the jungle, but they're not gentle giants.

Our Gary Strieker tells about a deadly duel between man and beast.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

GARY STRIEKER, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): In this government camp in Sumatra, elephants are trained to work and perform for the people who captured them. There are hundreds of elephants like these in similar camps across the island, captured because in the wild they were problem animals, persistent crop raiders or stubborn trespassers into villages.

They're like prisoners of war in a conflict between elephants and humans. A deadly competition for living space in most areas of southern Asia, where wild elephants still exist.

The Sumatran elephant is a distinct subspecies found nowhere else. There were an estimated 3,000 of them 20 years ago, but their population has now dropped to an uncertain number.

MICHAEL STUEWE, WORLD WILDLIFE FUND: The Sumatran elephant is probably in graver danger than any of the other populations.

STRIEKER: Deforestation is forcing the elephants to retreat into shrinking fragments of forest, where they can survive only by searching for food in surrounding farmers' fields and plantations.

STUEWE: These guys are always on the run from human beings. And every now and then they overdo it. They destroy one guy's property too much, and that fellow is going to react and the elephant may die.

STRIEKER: In these clashes, many elephants now pay the ultimate price: poisoned or shot. But there are casualties on both sides. This house was demolished by a herd of elephants. The family inside barely escaping with their lives.

Many oil palm plantations are trashed by hungry elephants. The manager of this plantation says he has given up trying to drive elephants off much of his land. And now they stay there most of the time eating his palm trees. The previous manager tried to stop them, and he was killed right here by an angry elephant. Farmers like these say elephants are destroying their crops, making their lives unbearable. And they want the government to take them away.

But the government has no money to pay for capturing and holding still more elephants. So the clashes continue, with farmers building fortresses and defending their crops with fire and human barricades.

(on camera): As the last of Sumatra's lowland forests are destroyed, and the last elephants are reduced to wandering starving herds, confrontations along these front lines are like small skirmishes in the final stage of a war that's already been won.

(voice-over): The question now: Will the winners in this conflict have any mercy for the losers? Is there any future for wild elephants in Sumatra?

Gary Strieker, CNN in Real (ph) Province, on the island of Sumatra, Indonesia.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

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