The Daily Star, AP, Sean Yoong, January 29, 2013
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| In this Wednesday, Jan. 23, 2013 photo released by Sabah Wildlife Department, a 3-month-old elephant calf tries to awake its dead mother at the Gunung Rara Forest Reserve in Sabah, Malaysia. (AP Photo/Sabah Wildlife Department) |
KUALA
LUMPUR, Malaysia:Ten endangered Borneo pygmy elephants have been found dead in
a Malaysian forest under mysterious circumstances, and wildlife officials said
Tuesday that they probably were poisoned.
Carcasses
of the baby-faced elephants were found near each other over the past three
weeks at the Gunung Rara Forest Reserve, said Laurentius Ambu, director of the
wildlife department in Malaysia's Sabah state on Borneo island.
In one
case, officers rescued a 3-month-old calf that was trying to wake its dead
mother.
Poisoning
appeared to be the likely cause, but officials have not determined whether it
was intentional, said Sabah environmental minister Masidi Manjun. Though some
elephants have been killed for their tusks on Sabah in past years, there was no
sign that these animals had been poached.
"This
is a very sad day for conservation and Sabah. The death of these majestic and
severely endangered Bornean elephants is a great loss to the state,"
Masidi said in a statement. "If indeed these poor elephants were
maliciously poisoned, I would personally make sure that the culprits would be
brought to justice and pay for their crime."
The WWF
wildlife group estimates that fewer than 1,500 Borneo pygmy elephants exist.
They live mainly in Sabah and grow to about eight feet tall, a foot or two
shorter than mainland Asian elephants. Known for their babyish faces, large
ears and long tails, pygmy elephants were found to be a distinct subspecies
only in 2003, after DNA testing.
Their
numbers have stabilized in recent years amid conservation efforts to protect
their jungle habitats from being torn down for plantations and development
projects.
The
elephants found dead this month were believed to be from the same family group
and ranged in age from 4 to 20 years, said Sen Nathan, the wildlife
department's senior veterinarian. Seven were female and three were male, he
said.
Post-mortems
showed they suffered severe hemorrhages and ulcers in their gastrointestinal
tracts. None had gunshot injuries.
"We
highly suspect that it might be some form of acute poisoning from something
that they had eaten, but we are still waiting for the laboratory results,"
Nathan said.
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