'Possessed' elephant at centre of macabre row

Published on Monday 19 July 2010 16:09

THE unlikeliest of activists — a rampaging elephant that locals claimed was supernaturally possessed — has aired rural Liberians' frustrations with the country's profitable timber industry.

The elephant killed a logging worker in June when it charged on to the local company's property, and had also been known to menace other employees and local farmers in previous weeks.

This unlikely confluence of superstition, corporate activity and a big, mad, male elephant ended last week in a macabre draw, when logging officials killed the elephant after it killed the logging company employee.

Locals said the elephant was possessed by human spirits and had channelled their frustrations into its rampages.

A local advocacy group said the logging industry decimates their forests while leaving no social development behind. Timber is one of Liberia's main exports and draws millions of dollars in foreign investment.

Elephants are endangered and protected in Liberia, but a forestry official said the animal had to be killed for residents' safety. In what appeared to be an attempt at reconciliation, officials have distributed elephant meat to locals. It was unclear whether residents ate the meat or not.

"We regret the two incidents: the killing of a person by the elephant and the killing of the elephant, which means we have lost an endangered species," said Theophilus Freeman, a deputy chief of Liberia's forest management agency. "We don't want to lose any of our endangered animals, but the law says if any of them becomes destructive and deadly, we get rid of it fast."

He added that authorities in Rivercess became convinced that the elephant was not possessed.

"Some people said there was a human being or two working in the elephant, but it's been two days since the killing of the elephant," he said last week. "If this was true, one or two persons would have died by now."

He said he now believes that locals claimed the elephant was possessed "to make demands" to the logging company.