Idelan comes from Kg. Telupid Batu 4. He studied fishery at Skill-Tech Institute before taking a job as an auxiliary police in the Sime Darby Estate in Kinabatangan. Although initially his village was not included in the Human Elephant Harmony project, he decided to join the Community Elephant Ranger Team after elephants re-visited his village and stayed for four months from January to April, 2018. Previously, elephants came to his village in 1998 from across the Labuk river; destroying some two acres of oil palm at the time.
