The elephant advocate
Elephant research takes Dr Ahimsa Campos-Arceiz on a never-ending adventure, writes
FACING off an irate elephant can be an occupational hazard for Dr Ahimsa Campos-Arceiz, conservation ecologist and principal investigator of the Management & Ecology of Malaysian Elephants (MEME). “The elephant was supposed to have been sedated!” he exclaims with a rueful laugh, recalling the incident.
The elephant in question was located in the dense part of the rainforest in Gua Musang where vegetation grew thick and impenetrable with only one little entrance to get in or out.
Together with a group of wildlife officers, trying to fit in that little space shared with the mammoth creature was a tight squeeze. “We were trying to check the collar on the elephant,” he explains.
Asian elephants live at greater densities in lowland forests below 300 metres. They move mostly in secondary forests with an annual home range of about 300 square kilometres. This makes tracking these animals across the vast forest landscape difficult.
“It is a challenge to study elephants in the wild,” he concedes. To get around that problem, researchers like Ahimsa have
fitted elephants with telemetry collars that sent signals to an orbiting satellite. He can now track these animals for a year or more as they move around the forest. Still, it is risky work — sedating and putting a collar on a full-grown elephant can be dangerous, as he would soon find out.
As they approached the still elephant (“We thought it was still sleeping!”) to check on its collar, it suddenly moved, ears flapping in agitation. Pandemonium ensued as people scrambled towards the singular entrance to get away from the irate beast.
Unfortunately for Ahimsa, the entrance was too far away for him to make an escape. He ran towards the opposite direction with the elephant in tow, and hid behind a tree.
“I was crouching behind a tree while the elephant looked for me!” he recounts, chuckling. He could hear his thundering hear, as the elephant tried to reach for him with its trunk.
“I had never been so scared,” he admits. The elephant eventually gave up and lumbered deep into the forest.
After a while, the men from the Wildlife Department returned and cautiously called out: “Ahimsa... Are you okay?”
He laughs again at the recollection, remarking dryly: “They were not confident that I was alive!” They later celebrated his survival with a durian feast. “That’s when I had my first Musang King,” he reveals, not without a little pride.
You like durians? I ask, surprised. “I love them!” he replies, grinning.
It’s not quite the story I want to hear as we’re navigating the undulating trails deep within the jungles of Ulu Muda in search of elephants.
The trees press close together, and I can’t help but think that what lies behind them could be danger lurking in the form of a herd of angry elephants.
But Ahimsa serenely walks on, breezy and lithe as he points excitedly at places that show signs of elephant activity. Mounds of elephant dung, disturbed vegetation and markings on the barks of towering trees — these are enough to bring a glint to the Spanish scientist’s eye.
After all, to study the elephant is to fall under its thrall. Elephants loom large, both physically and psychologically, and the people who study them and work with them become their lifelong advocates.
“They are fascinating creatures,” he murmurs as he traces the deeply etched grooves on the bark of a nearby tree with his finger. “See this?” he points to the grooves. “The elephant used this tree to scratch its back!” He then proceeds to move his back against the tree trunk, imitating the elephant and we laugh heartily, the fear of irate pachyderms lurking nearby temporarily forgotten.
It’s a fine day to be traipsing through the Ulu Muda forest with Ahimsa leading the way. Organised by Water Watch Penang and MEME, the Ulu Muda media advocacy trip aims to introduce the many wonders of this swathe of forest located in Kedah, as well as highlight the importance of forest biodiversity and ecosystem services.
The 160,000 hectares of Greater Ulu Muda, located along Kedah’s eastern interior border with the Thai province of Yala, comprise several forest reserves including the Ulu Muda forest reserve which is the largest at 105,000 hectares.
With lowland, hill and upper hill dipterocarp forest cover, Ulu Muda forest reserve is an important site of Malaysia’s mega fauna including elephants, tigers, leopards and tapirs. Elephants were the furthest on his mind when he was growing up in the city of Galicia, Northwest Spain.
“I wanted to be a cell biologist,” confesses Ahimsa. But his love for nature, solitary trips up to the mountains and encounters with wildlife soon had him changing his area of focus from biology to the science of wildlife.
“I enjoyed being in contact with nature and I realised I didn’t want spend my time cooped up in a lab,” he admits.
Ahimsa eventually worked as a consultant in wildlife back in Spain before deciding to pursue his post-graduate studies at the University of Tokyo in Japan. In 2001, he went to Iriomote, a sub-tropical island off the coast of Japan where he first fell in love with the tropics.