During the week, precisely on Wednesday, the picture of a medium-sized elephant spotted somewhere at Ikuru Town in Andoni Local Government Area of Rivers State went viral on social media, to the pleasant surprise of many in the country, including this reporter.
Though I have spent many years in Rivers State, I have never been privileged to hear the story of elephants being seen in any part of Rivers State, hence my surprise when I saw the pictures Wednesday evening.
Immediately the journalist in me took the better of me and I wanted to know more about the elephant, especially since the town where it was spotted is being inhabited by some people who are known to me. So I set out on making some inquiries and without going too far, I came upon some interesting stories that, though may not be new to many,appeared intriguing.
Reality or myth?
My source who gave her name simply as Lizzy told me that to them who are from the area, the sight of the elephant was not new as once in a while, elephants were seen on the pathway leading to the ocean where the popular Olokpoon fishing port is located.
“The wild could now be seen sometimes straying to adjoining tracks maybe due to seismic activities by oil exploration companies or other development activities that are recently encroaching the forest habitat,” she stated.
”Ages ago, when development and human activities were minimal, an elephant had caused pandemonium killing a man in the process but with the upsurge of human activities, the wild elephant could now be sighted not far away from residential areas.
“A hunter over a decade ago succeeded in killing an elephant in his local trap, the meat at that time was a general feast for the small community of Ikuru town since then no hunter had ever had an elephant catch.”
She doused my excitement when she told me that even though outsiders might be thrilled by rare sight of the animal, which she described as the king of the forest, the locals don’t usually find it funny when the big animals decide to stray as they constitute disruption to the economic lives of the people at such times.
She said: “You see that road you saw an elephant, it is the way to the fishing port- the major economic zone of the people. As soon as the animal is on that road, all movement to and fro the fishing port terminates until it returns to the belly of the forest.”
Asked if the people could not mobilise and chase it away, she warned that the elephants move in a community stressing that there could be others lurking not far away from where that one is and that if it feels threatened or hurt and raised alarm, there would certainly be a bedlam of the animals and the people would have themselves to blame for daring the elephants.
She went on to say that the elephants are also a serious threat to farming activities in the area. Lizzy said: “Farming is almost a risky venture in the area because if an elephant strays into any farmland, it consumes all crops before checking out of the farm, in some instances it stays for as long as three to five days, devouring crops and shrubs on farmlands.”
A former deputy governor of the state, Engineer Tele Ikuru, had a sad tale when his large palm plantation was devoured by wild elephants around 1996. The farm with over twenty workers was ruined in three days by just one elephant.
It was also gathered that efforts by officers from the State Forestry Department to harness the forest reserve proved abortive as they barely escaped death from the wild elephants, with some of the officers running out of the forest with varying degrees of injuries.
The mythical part of the story came to the fore when asked if the elephants were not at the risk of poachers who kill the elephants for the expensive tusks.
To this Lizzy responded thus: “Rumour has it that a hunter once discovered a heap of elephant tusks in the community’s forest at night during one of his hunting missions but could not take away with any of the tusks after several attempt to leave the forest with it.”
According to her,the tale had it that as long as the hunter was with the tusks he would keep wandering in the forest without being able to make his way out of it.
When he dropped the tusk, he was able to find his way out but couldn’t think of himself leaving the forest without as much as one, so he went back to pick just one only for his wandering to continue once again until he finally gave up and abandoned the adventure.
In the belly of Ikuru forest lies a potential tourist goldmine that one day, one hopes that the authorities concerned will rise up to the occasion and harness the potentials to the benefit of the people and turn the pastoral community to the cynosure of all eyes.
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