Indonesia uses love and war to rein in wild elephants

Reporting from Tesso Nilo National Park, Indonesia — 

The wild bull elephant stood menacingly in the clearing, trumpeting in annoyance and anger, its brain racing with a chemical that unleashes a throbbing and unceasing headache.

It was the heart of mating season, and the bull was desperately seeking a mate.

Was this really a good moment to be sitting on top of another elephant just a few hundred feet away?

But Syamsuardi, a native of the wild Sumatran forest, had his strategy ready: He would pit his own elephant against the amorous stranger.

The compact 37-year-old, who like many Indonesians goes by one name, manages the Flying Squad, a herd of tamed elephants that patrols the more than 200,000-acre park like jungle Guardian Angels.

In many nations, dwindling forests have brought deadly conflict between man and animal. In Sumatra, rampaging elephants that have wandered out of parks and into populated areas have long been shot or poisoned by officials or vengeful property owners.

Syamsuardi’s team is the local brainchild of the World Wildlife Fund, which borrowed the idea from India. The goal: persuade the intruders to simply get lost, to return to their sanctuary, where lethal run-ins with humans are far less likely.

With the Flying Squad, brute force isn’t the only option.

The team sometimes dispatches a female to mate with the aggressor, a tactic that has not only defused tension but also produced two offspring from the wild elephants: Tesso and Nella.

But confronting the angry bull, Syamsuardi sensed this showdown wouldn’t end so easily.

Perched atop Rachman, the Flying Squad leader, he and the other mahouts, or handlers, positioned two males and two females side by side, never taking their eyes off the intruder. Then they moved slowly forward, a multi-ton battering ram, with each handler atop his elephant, awaiting the big bull’s charge.

Syamsuardi recalled the terror of knowing he’d be exposed to piercing tusks and the collisions of gigantic bodies. Caught in the middle, he would be crushed like an insect.

“It’s tense, but you must be calm and stay quiet,” he said. “I have to be ready to think quickly because when the time comes, my elephants are waiting for my command.”

Elephants are losing the battle over the vanishing jungle.

The forests that once covered Sumatra’s Riau province -- home to the largest elephant population in Indonesia -- are disappearing.

In the last 20 years alone, the paper and palm oil industries have cut down 60% of the pachyderm habitat. Now just 10% of the remaining forest is suitable for elephants. Since 1985, the province’s elephant population has plummeted to 350 from 1,600. About 80 elephants live within Tesso Nilo National Park.

At least once a month, wild herds from the park attack one of the nearby settlements, activists say. Since 2007, 13 elephants and several residents have been killed in Riau province alone.

“If given a choice, elephants would prefer never to see humans,” Syamsuardi said. “But the problem is that humans continue to invade their territory. There’s not enough jungle left.”

In 2004, after a rash of animal rampages, Syamsuardi began his monumental task: shape a team of wild animals into an obedient police force.

Then a World Wildlife Fund outreach worker, he knew little about elephants. So he began reading up on the animals and working with them in the field.

Now he and his staff of eight handlers foster a bond with their elephant wards. For mahouts such Adrianto, 26, it means a soothing voice interspersed with strict commands.

One day, Adrianto took the 26-year-old Ria and her 2-year-old calf, Tesso, for a bath in a forest watering hole. Ria trudged though the jungle, grabbing leaves with her trunk, her feet leaving large craters in the soft dirt.

At the murky pond, she waded into the water like a four-legged sumo wrestler, with Adrianto on her back. As the animals luxuriated in the cool water, their trunks shooting quick bursts of water, Adrianto scrubbed their backs, talking softly in Indonesian.

“Don’t be naughty,” he told Tesso, who nudged him with a forehead sprouting unruly black hairs. Then he pushed the baby’s head underwater and scrubbed behind its ears.

“Ria is an actress,” he said later, perched comfortably on her neck as though riding a big movable easy chair. “She pouts unless she gets what she wants.”

The mahouts treat obedient animals to brownies. But there are sticks that come with such carrots. When Ria resists, Adrianto whacks her hard on the head with a small stick with a metal end that he uses for discipline. Tesso gets a stick shoved into his ear when he gets too frisky.

Before a routine patrol, Syamsuardi showered affection on Ria, rubbing her cheek and neck. He has grown to love these big animals and fears for their future.

“They’re incredibly loyal,” he said. “When a mahout falls during a fight with a wild bull, the herd will surround him in protection.”

They are also immensely powerful. An elephant can topple a pickup truck with one nudge of its forehead. In villages, the animals are referred to as datu, or mister, a term of respect given no other jungle creature.

Syamsuardi has seen the results of their fury. Every few weeks, they rampage through settlements for food and out of anger or frustration.

“The male pierces victims with its tusks and then throws them with its trunk. If they are still moving, he’ll stomp them,” he said. “Females mostly kick. Either way, it’s a tragic way to die.”

Syamsuardi uses elephant face-offs as a last resort. And his methods have worked: So far, none of the mahouts have been hurt.

The team first tries to scare aggressive herds by setting off carbide cannons to scare them away. At night, rangers use car lights and blasts of the horn.

If the mating option is used, the team finds a secure spot for the ritual, which can last a week. (The mahouts then get lost, to give the animals a little privacy.)

If the team decides that it’s better to make war, not love, fights between the Flying Squad and aggressors can last for hours.

As the bull stomped in warning, the Flying Squad approached. The lineup, designed to confuse the invader so it can’t tell which elephant is pack leader, came within a few feet.

Finally, the bull lunged at Rachman. Tusks flashing, the two animals collided. Syamsuardi hung on as the other elephants closed in around the intruder, like a gang tackle on the football field.

The fight lasted a tense and sweaty 35 minutes, during which the big animals swung their heads, bearing their tusks like swords, their bodies like battering rams. Finally, the bull moved off into the brush.

For now, Syamsuardi knew, the big animal was safe.

“I was so satisfied. We didn’t have to kill that bull,” he said. “We just gave him a message: Go back to the forest with your own kind. You’ll live longer that way.”

john.glionna@latimes.com