A forlorn and frightened pygmy elephant calf, reaching out its trunk to touch its dead mother.
That's the heartbreaking
scene local authorities came across recently as they patrolled the
Gunung Rara Forest Reserve in northeastern Borneo.
The mother was one of 14
elephants, the latest one discovered Thursday, found dead over the past
few weeks in the forest reserve. Officials believe they were poisoned,
though the cause of death is still being determined.
"Poisoning elephants is a
very common practice in these parts of the world," said Barney Long,
the World Wildlife Fund's Asian species expert. "The elephants are
usually poisoned with bait such as pineapple, palm oil or bananas. The
poison is fast-acting and can kill up to a whole herd."
The purpose of poisoning the elephants: to make the land safe for farming.
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"This is a very sad day
for conservation and Sabah," said Malaysia's environment and tourism
minister, Masidi Manjun, in a news release. Sabah, one of 13 Malaysian
states, is home to Gunung Rara and the remaining pygmy elephants. "The
death of these majestic and severely endangered Borneo elephants is a
great loss to the state."
Approximately 1,200 of
the endangered pygmy elephants remain in the wild, Long said. The
elephants like low-lying, open areas in Sabah where they can feed
easily, but they have also been known to roam into plantations and
villages where they cause damage and losses to farmers and villagers
alike.
Masidi said he has
directed the Sabah Wildlife Department, which is in charge of the Gunung
Rara Forest Reserve, to set up a joint task force with entities such as
the Forestry Department, the forestry group Yayasan Sabah, the World
Wildlife Fund and police to investigate these deaths.
"If indeed these poor
elephants were maliciously poisoned, I will make sure that the culprits
are brought to justice and pay for their crime," he said in the news
release.
The World Wildlife Fund,
in a separate statement, said it "is providing support to the Sabah
Wildlife Department and is part of the special task force that has been
set up by the department to further investigate the matter."
"Our patrolling teams
worked closely with the department in unearthing the incident,"
WWF-Malaysia's executive director, Dionysius S K Sharma, said in the
statement.
"The central forest
landscape in Sabah needs to be protected totally from conversions" from
forest to farmland, he said. "All conversion approvals need to be
reviewed by the Sabah Forestry Department and assessed not purely from
commercial but the endangered species and landscape ecology
perspectives.
"Conversions result in
fragmentation of the forests, which in turn results in loss of natural
habitat for elephant herds, thus forcing them to find alternative food
and space, putting humans and wildlife in direct conflict."
Holistic, long-term solutions need to be put in place to address and mitigate the problem, Dionysius said.
While the cause of the
elephants' deaths is being investigated, the future of the little calf
found by his mother's side is uncertain. The calf, now named Joe, is
said to be in the care of the Sabah Wildlife Department, but officials
hope to have him rejoin a herd as soon as possible.
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