KOTA KINABALU – Sabah is preparing a cabinet paper on managing captive elephants to ensure the safety of animal caretakers.
Sabah Tourism, Culture, and Environment Minister Datuk Christina Liew said the state Wildlife Department is now working on a shift from “free contact (FC) management” to “protective contact (PC) management” for this purpose.
This comes following the death of a caretaker at the Lok Kawi Wildlife Park last Christmas.
“We are in the process of implementing the Sabah Captive Elephant Management Plan on safe elephant handling as part of the Sabah Bornean Elephant Action Plan (2020-2029).
“I will present the paper to the cabinet for deliberation and consideration. It is about improving facilities and adopting good management practices in managing elephants in captivity,” Liew told a press conference after officiating the Workshop on Managing People and Macaques in Shared Spaces at Le Meridien here today.
There are 25 elephants in captivity at three facilities in Sabah – 14 at the Lok Kawi Wildlife Park, six in Sandakan’s Sepilok, and five at the Borneo Elephant Sanctuary in Kinabatangan.
Sabah Wildlife Department Director Augustine Tuuga, who also spoke, said the shift from FC to PC management involved modifying all the structures sheltering the captive elephants.
“At the moment, we are only doing FC management which is dangerous for the handler (in reference to the incident where an elephant attacked and killed a keeper last December).
“The idea of changing to PC management is to make the place safer for the handler, where the elephant is free and safe inside the enclosure while the handler is safe outside. We call this ‘protected contact.’ We need funding to modify all the current infrastructure for captive elephants,” he explained. – The Vibes, March 20, 2023
