Going on an elephant hunt!

Why would you want to kill an elephant? When the elephant becomes a rogue. A rogue elephant becomes dangerous as it is cast out from the herd, and in trying to fend for itself, infringes on to human settlements. Stealing from the farm and plantation, an easier option than foraging in the jungle, the rogue elephant attacks the villagers causing severe harm, injuries and even death. It is then the responsibility of the Park Ranger to put down the elephant.

Elephants live in a strong communal herd. There is a leader bull elephant with his cows and others including young baby elephants. When an elephant grows old and feeble, it cannot keep up with the herd and has to fan for itself. All alone, the elephant becomes very frustrated and in poor health, it takes to foraging in the jungle for food. If it should be near human settlements, it will choose the easy way out by rampaging into human farms and plantations. When faced with human resistance, it will attack and kill the people. When this happens, the alarm will go out to the Park Ranger, who will have to take action.

Shortly after I graduated from the UK, I was posted to the Single Pioneer Squadron of the RMAF in Kuala Lumpur. One day, an Operational Order, coded Elephant Express, was received requesting us to fly an elephant hunter to Rompin, to shoot a rogue elephant. Rompin is at the southern tip of the National Game Reserve in Pahang, and is well known as elephant country, where herds of elephants roam freely.

And so we took off in the morning, in a Single Pioneer aircraft, with the hunter Warrant Officer Ford ( no relation to Harrison Ford!), Satchi my colleague, and myself. We stayed in a very nice government house and shortly after lunch, set off to track the elephant, accompanied by an experienced beater. A beater is someone who assists the hunter by carrying his second gun and when necessary, goes forward to make noises to drive the elephant into an open field for the kill. He may be assisted by other beaters, who will fan out to drive the elephant. It is a dangerous job, as the elephant will attack when provoked. We were briefed by Ford that when a kill is imminent, we were to position ourselves at the foot of a tree, and to be prepared to climb the tree to get out of the way of a charging elephant. A dangerous situation. Ford was armed with two elephant guns, converted from double barrel shotguns, with steel insert to take the thirty-o-six caliber bullets. A mean looking pointed brass bullet measuring almost 10 cm long.

As we started to track, it also started to rain. Drenched, we found the elephant foot prints and droppings. On inspection, it was found that the elephant was indeed old and in poor health and had a digestive problem. Seeds were not digested in the elephant dung. Elephants are vegetarian and eat plants and seedlings. With digestive problems, the rumbling in an elephant's stomach can be heard quite distinctly, from a distance. As we drew nearer to the elephant, we could hear this rumbling sound. The air was almost electric as Ford signalled to us to be quiet and stealthily, we approached some tall vegetation. We could smell the elephant as we peeped through the branches, and also heard the snort and moan of the elephant. Trying to figure out the wind direction, we moved up wind so that the elephant could not catch our scent. Too late! The elephant had caught our scent and moved on. By the time we got to where the elephant was, he had already bolted. It was very surprising that the elephant could move so silently and at such speed.

We continued to pursue the elephant. Coming up to a small bridge, we noticed that a white wooden sign board was smashed to smithereens. Ford explained to us that elephants in the wild do not like the colour white and will smash any object in white. Following the elephant foot prints, we also noticed that the elephant had traversed off the wooden bridge and walked across the small drain. Elephants are intelligent enough to realise that the wooden bridge might not be strong enough to hold the elephant's weight. So whenever an elephant meets a shoddy and weak structure, it will avoid and walk round it instead.

As we continued to track the elephant, I was surprised at the speed and silence in which the elephant had evaded us. One only has to go to the zoo, to see how the elephant keepers move a string of elephants, silently and very quickly. With rain pouring down on us, we reached a rather swollen river. To our dismay, the elephant had crossed the river to the other side, as shown by the foot prints. It was then that we abandoned our quest to shoot the elephant.

As Ford explained to us, shooting an elephant is very dangerous. You cannot simply raise your gun and shoot it, because a wounded elephant is extremely dangerous. It has thick hide and the bristles are like metal wire. It is very strong and aggressive. In order to kill an elephant, the hunter must stand and face it with the gun ready. There are two shots in the gun and the beater carries the other gun also with two bullets loaded, and ready to hand the gun to the hunter, should his first two shots miss. The hunter waits in position. The elephant will start to charge and as it gets closer to the hunter, it will instinctively lower the head to pierce with the tusks. It is at this point in time, that the hunter will shoot directly into the elephant's brain, which is on top of the head. The bullet will fragment on impact smashing the brain. A second shot will then be fired for safe measure, and the elephant should drop dead. Should the two shots not hit the brain directly, the hunter will have to use the second gun to finish off the kill. By this time also, the beater would be running for his life!

Ford also explained to us that elephants can be very cunning. He was stalking an elephant once. Sensing the elephant behind some growth, he moved up close and threw his hat ahead of him. Immediately the elephant stomped on the hat. He moved very quickly and managed to kill the elephant. The elephant had waited for him behind the growth to strike at him.

Missing the elephant, we returned to Kuala Lumpur. I found out a couple of days later, that Ford went back and finally killed the elephant.

Shortly after this episode, my colleague and friend Satchi, was killed in a crash, the first air crash in the RMAF.

Till then....