Indonesia: Sumatran elephant dies at Riau conservation park

Antara 31 May 12;

Pekanbaru (ANTARANews) - A Sumatran male elephant was found dead at Tesso Nilo National Conservation Park in Riau province on Thursday, the park chief said.

"We think the elephant died a day ago," Head of Tesso Nilo National Conservation Park Kuppin Simbolon said here on Thursday.

The body of the elephant was found by the park`s officials and members of the Riau`s WWF on Thursday morning, he added.

Kuppin noted the tusks of the elephant were still intact and the cause of its death was not yet known.

"A team of doctors from Riau Nature Conservation Service is now heading to the location to investigate the cause of the elephant`s death," he stated.

Local sources said the elephant died at Sei Tapak, Lubuk Kembang Bunga village, Pelalawan district, Riau. The area has oil palm plantations belonging to local residents.

Including the recent finding, the number of elephants found dead in Riau in 2012 has reached four. Earlier, the three elephants that were found dead reportedly belonged to a wild elephant group of Tesso Nilo park.
(Uu.A014/INE/KR-BSR/S012)

Editor: Priyambodo RH

Three rare elephants found dead in Indonesia
AFP Yahoo News 3 Jun 12;

Three critically-endangered Sumatran elephants have been found dead in an oil palm plantation in western Indonesia and are believed to have been poisoned, an NGO said Saturday.

Villagers found the dead animals on Thursday in a government-owned oil palm plantation in the eastern part of Aceh province. They were estimated to be four and five years old, local environmental group Fakta said.

"We suspected that they died after consuming bars of soap laced with poison we found near the carcass," the group's chief Rabono Wiranata told AFP.

"It seems that the elephants have died around one week," he said.

The animals are usually either killed by villagers, who regard the beasts as pests that destroy their plantations, or by poachers for their tusks.

Early last month, two other Sumatran elephants were found dead in the west of the province.

There are fewer than 3,000 Sumatran elephants remaining in the wild, according to the International Union for Conservation of Nature, marking a 50 percent drop in numbers since 1985.

WWF changed the Sumatran elephant's status from "endangered" to "critically endangered" in January, largely due to severe habitat loss driven by oil palm and paper plantations.

Conflicts between humans and animals are increasing as people encroach on wildlife habitats in Indonesia, an archipelago with some of the world's largest remaining tropical forests.