elephant ride

Most of us have not experience an elephant ride. You are welcome to the elephant sanctuary at kuala gandah, where the asian elephants are waiting for the visitors.

The Asian Elephant is the smaller species and fighting or its survival. With the fast development of the countries, the existence of the elephants is being threatened. About the Elephants There is about 30,000 still alive in the shrinking forest in the South of Asia and South East Asia. The situation in some countries is worst.

In Malaysia the situation is no better, in fact it is worst. The forest is being stripped off at ever fastest rate. Do not be amused with the statistics. The problem is the statistics does not give the true picture. Take for example, if you build a highway that cut across a jungle, it is not the area of the jungle turned into road is the issues. Statistically only a fraction of the land is taken... but the truth is it effect the grazing ground. Elephants require large undivided forest to survive and have a highway way divide the jungle into 2 pieces that cannot support a herd.

The ministry estimate that there are about 1,300 elephants in peninsular and about 1400 in Borneo. Borneo is the home to pygmy elephant and the Peninsular is for the Asian elephants. The claim is difficult to verify scientifically.

The Malaysia authority had rightfully responded by set up the Elephant Management Unit in 1974 under the authority of the Department of Wildlife and National Parks. This unit had in fact established the well known Kuala Gandah Elephant Conservation Centre. The unit has built up the expertise to reallocate elephant to avoid confrontation with the local peoples. Some of the elephants remain at the center for a long time and used for elephant ride for the tourists.

The elephants had been completely move out of 3 states, Selangor, Negeri Sembilan and Perlis. If you include the two smaller states of Melaka and Penang, five of the nine states are stripped off from having any of the wild elephants. The states with elephants are Pahang, Kelantan, Trengganu and Perak. All these three are connected or neighbor of Pahang.

The situation in Borneo seem to be better. It has a bigger areas of forest compared to West Malaysia. So there is still hope that these gentle animals will be around and share this small world with our future generations.

Efforts are being made The Department of Wildlife and National Parks to work very closely with the international WWF to plan for the survival of Borneo’s elephants.

The picture on the right at the bare back elephant ride.