Photo via Astro AWANI
Over the past few months, a group of elephants had been seen entering the premises of Sekolah Kebangsaan (SK) RPS Kemar in Gerik, Perak, believed to be looking for food.
In the latest incident on Tuesday, an adult elephant estimated to be between 30 to 35-years-old was seen entering the area, and it was caught on camera.
State Wildlife and National Parks Department (PERHILITAN) director, Yusoff Shariff, said the wild elephant wandered onto the school grounds after damaging an electric fence - but no one was injured.
“Our staff went to the school to repair the fence and increased the voltage on the charger to 9.1, which together with the blue LED lights, should be able to scare off elephants," he told Bernama here yesterday, when asked to comment on a one-minute-16-second video showing an elephant at the school, which has now gone viral,” he explained.
It’s understood the department had previously received reports of four to five elephants entering the school, and so it installed an electric fence around the school last November to prevent the elephants from returning, but it suffered damage recently.
“The Wildlife staff has just done the repair work on the fence and the electric current has reached 9.1 volts, enough to prevent elephants from entering the area. In addition, we also install blue 'high LED' lights to scare the elephants,” he said.
Yusoff urged the public to help PERHILITAN maintain and look after the fence, as it was installed to protect the children and teachers.
Hope the elephants are okay! And we’re glad no one was hurt!
by Kyle Roshen Jacob
