Sumatran elephant at risk

WWF urged the Indonesian Ministry of Forestry to immediately enforce the legislation on elephant deaths. According to the environmental organization, over 100 elephants have been found dead in Riau, Sumatra, since 2004, where the government failed to enforce the law. "In May, there have been three elephants found dead in Tesso Nilo," said Syamsidar, of WWF.

The latest elephant-killing case occured in Tesso Nilo National Park, Pelalawan District, Riau Province in May 2013. Two elephant corpses were found by WWF team and TNNP office who were doing their regular patrol on Friday, May 31st 2013 and they are allegedly to be poisoned.

"There are two wild elephants which were found dead, one is a young elephant and the other is its mother and were probably still from the same group." Head of Tesso Nilo National Park Office, Kupin Simbolon, told to Antara News.

Furthermore, tentative analysis based on the condition of the scene states that the two corpses were alleged to be poisoned, some unidentified utensils were also found around the bodies. As the two bodies were not decomposed yet, the team estimated that they were killed 2-3 days ago.

"There should be immediate response by the government to every suspicious death of the endangered species by doing investigations and examinations. Because every death of the major species means a loss of the country’s assets, moreover, Sumatra elephants are species in critical condition” said Sunarto, species expert of WWF Indonesia, in a press release last week.

“The condition today is very devastating. There have been several numbers of dead elephants found and we promise to not let this continue to happen” Kupin added.

Though associated institutions (including Riau Natural Resources Conservation Office and Veterinary Office of Pelalawan District) has sent the Autopsy Team to resolve the dead-elephant case reported by WWF, there is still no real action on the case until now, the environmental organization said in a press release said. The Tesso Nilo National Park Office only secured the tusks of the bodies that were found in Ukui Sector.