LANGKAT, Indonesia — A critically endangered Sumatran elephant was found dead April 4 on the border of the Gunung Leuser National Park in Sumatra’s Langkat district, officials said.
The elephant was male, around 10 years old, and weighed no more than 2 tons. Officials said they believe the individual had been dead for several days before being reported.
Regional state conservation lead Amenson Girsang said a preliminary assessment by veterinarians found wounds on the elephant’s body, but the cause of death was inconclusive.
Toxicology tests were underway to assess if poisoning was the cause of death, officials said.
“We’re still waiting for the lab results, which will come back within 30 days after they received the samples,” said Subhan, the director of the Gunung Leuser National Park office in Indonesia’s North Sumatra province.
The protected Leuser Ecosystem spans almost 8,000 square kilometers (3,088 square miles) in the north of Indonesia’s Sumatra Island and is the only place on Earth where Sumatran elephants (Elephas maximus sumatranus), orangutans (genus Pongo), rhinos (Dicerorhinus sumatrensis) and tigers (Panthera tigris sondaica) coexist in the wild. All four are critically endangered, according to the IUCN, the global wildlife conservation authority.
Subhan said a team of officials and conservationists arrived at the scene on April 5, the day after a plantation worker had discovered the deceased elephant.
Several local people told Mongabay Indonesia that the elephant had died within a plantation concession operated by PT Raya Padang Langkat, but the company denied the claim. PT Rapala, as the company is commonly known, has a history of conflict with local communities.
“Not in our concession,” PT Rapala manager Daulat Siregar said in a text message. “We were there only to help with the burial process and take samples for laboratory examination.”
Elephant deaths in oil palm plantations near Gunung Leuser National Park aren’t new. In 2017, an elephant was found dead in a concession operated by PT Perkebunan Inti Sawit Subur, just 1.5 km (0.9 mi) from the park’s boundary. In November 2016, authorities rescued two elephants from hunters’ snares in the same plantation.
The area where the latest elephant death occurred lies on the Aceh–North Sumatra elephant corridor. Indonesia’s forestry ministry last year said it would release a conservation plan for the corridor by April this year.
In 2007, the Sumatran elephant population was estimated to be between 2,400 and 2,800 individuals in the wild. However, a draft 2019-2029 elephant conservation plan, not released by the government but viewed by Mongabay, estimated there might be 924-1,359 elephants left.
According to WWF-Indonesia, Sumatran elephants have lost around 70% of their habitat in less than three decades, owing to land use change for oil palm, pulp and rubber concessions.
This story was first published here in Indonesian on April 10.
Banner image: a Sumatran elephant (for representation only). Image by Rhett A. Butler/Mongabay.
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