Tiki-taka is a Spanish style of playing football with short passing and movement, working the ball through various channels between players, which said adopted from a Total Football concept from the Dutch’s Oranye Team. The style become more popular during Pep Guardiola era coaching Barcelona. Short passing and non-stop movements by the players to defend and attack create its own tiki-taka.

Although not exactly the same, a balanced move tactics from all angles are followed by Albert Tetanus as the Rescue Team Coordinator and his colleagues from Jambi Nature Conservation Agency (BKSDA) and their conservation partner organization Frankfurt Zoological Society (FZS) to evacuate and relocate a Sumatran elephant calf (Elephas maximus sumatranus) that trapped in a snare in Jambi on the late of August 2021.

Short movements by the rescue team are positioned on the four winds angle succeeded in relocating a 412 kilograms Sumatran elephant calf (Elephas maximus sumatranus) to its own habitat. Albert as the commander needs 23 personnel to rescue and relocate the calf from the front, right and left also from the back.

The front functioned as puller, the back as pusher also a captor, meanwhile the right and left position functioned as controller. Gunmen and medical workers to anticipate an emergency situation accompanied the four sides. On the process, a clear command, teamwork and equipment availability (for example ropes and medical equipment) is key to success of the evacuation and relocation operation

The evacuation process start from Tungkal Ulu Village, West Tanjungjabung Regency where located near residential area. The evacuation of a 5 years old mammal which a few months before keep wandering on the area become a show for the residents and causing problem for officers to keep a safe distance.

From there, the Sumatran elephant calf with the length of 130 meters will be carried by truck for two days to Bentang Alam Bukit Tigapuluh in Tebo Regency, not far from its mother herd.

Though the calf will be carried by truck, the relocation process still relying on human power, since the four wheel vehicle can only bring it to the skirt of the jungle. The Tiki-taka tactics is back adopted from droping off the calf from the truck up to cross the wood in Bukit Tigapuluh National Park.

Head of Jambi Nature Conservation Agency (BKSDA) Rahmad Saleh said that the relocation site is carried out carefully and measurably, with the consideration of the safe distance of the released and the distance between the calf and its herd. The measuring is done based on GPS Collar movement that is equipped by manual monitoring team on the field. Besides, surveillance camera are installed on the track around the relocation site

Rahmad said, relocation process of the Sumatran elephant calf started from the residents of West Tanjungjabung Regency report at the end of Desember 2020. The report said that they found a Sumatran elephant calf which got entangled.

After that, the Jambi BKSDA team perform a field check with fully medical team, they found that the elephant calf feet has been on severe condition and give treatment also monitoring the condition for several months, considering the distance of the calf to the residential area.

A few months passed, the field monitoring team reported that the condition of the elephant calf feet had improved, only after that an evacuation and relocation strategic are arranged, including the monitoring of the mother.

The relocation process of the female elephant calf to its herd without using tame elephants or one hundred percent using human labor is expected to be an oasis in the midst of the extinction threat of the endemic large mammal population of Sumatra's tropical forests.

Images and Text : Wahdi Septiawan

Editor : Fanny Octavianus