There are fewer and fewer Sumatran elephants left, a subspecies of Asian elephant that lives in the lowlands and hills of this Indonesian island. Its conservation is seriously threatened, because its population has been reduced by half since 1985, according to data from the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF, for its acronym in English).
Despite the setback of recent decades, some specimens can still be seen in Riau (Indonesia) thanks to the use of GPS collars, a device that helps teams predict where elephants and their herds are in order to anticipate possible dangers. This chain not only serves to protect the Sumatran elephants, but also helps to guarantee the coexistence between animals and the inhabitants of the nearby towns, which have suffered some unwanted visits in recent times.
Confrontations between humans and elephants in Riau have become more common since the 1990s, explained the Rimba Satwa Foundation (RSF), an organization that worked to preserve what was left of Sumatran elephant herds and had to balance preservation with livelihood support for villagers.
They seek to reduce "the level of conflict" and "casualtylessness between humans and wildlife, especially Sumatran elephants, through the application of technology and community engagement."
The idea for GPS collars in this area of Indonesia came after the 2016 incident, when a herd of around thirty wild elephants descended on the village of Muara Bungkal for two months, devouring some fifty hectares of land. The animals wiped out the crop, causing losses of thousands of dollars.
In 2020, the organization began tracking elephants, tagging them, and fitting giant GPS collars around their necks. In principle, they put three, which worked well from the beginning.
RSF takes a positive view of the collars: “The team's experience in the process of installing a GPS collar and processing this data can be a good lesson for future elephant conservation. Therefore, the team compiled a learning book for GPS collar installation and data processing as a shared and learning experience. The hope is that if there are similar activities, it can work better and more effectively.”
As of 2022, the organization had five of the GPS collars tracking five herds of wild elephants, more than half the population that roams the wilds of Sumatra, according to Rest of World.
During the past year there was no violent confrontation. “The elephants are still heading our way, but we can handle it now that they have the collars. We can be ready. It's not like before," explains one of the people in charge of the village to this outlet.
Monitoring these animals can be very useful in cases like this. “We collar the biggest elephant in the herd, because he is the most dominant and the other elephants follow him,” says Zulhusni Syukri, RSF program director. In this way, they can anticipate if a pack is approaching a village.
Although they succeed, putting the collars on these animals is not an easy task. First, you have to track and find the animal. Then, sedate him to place the collar. The tracker connects to a satellite, which sends the GPS coordinates of the elephant's location to the RSF team.
Currently, 22 employees of this organization track the elephants using their mobile phones, entering the coordinates into Google Maps. If they see the coordinates of an animal approaching, they send a notice to those responsible for the village.
