TheJakartaPost
Please Update your browser
Your browser is out of date, and may not be compatible with our website. A list of the most popular web browsers can be found below.
Just click on the icons to get to the download page.
Elephant found dead after suspected pesticide poisoning
A six-year-old male elephant was found dead on a block of farmland in Pucok Turue village in Mane district, Pidie, Aceh, on Wednesday, allegedly due to poisoning from eating pesticide stored by a farmer in a hut in the middle of the field
Change text size
Gift Premium Articles
to Anyone
Share the best of The Jakarta Post with friends, family, or colleagues. As a subscriber, you can gift 3 to 5 articles each month that anyone can read—no subscription needed!
A
six-year-old male elephant was found dead on a block of farmland in Pucok Turue village in Mane district, Pidie, Aceh, on Wednesday, allegedly due to poisoning from eating pesticide stored by a farmer in a hut in the middle of the field.
Locals said they were shocked when they found the dead elephant in the irrigated field near a forest.
'We do not know how the elephant died, but we found piles of fertilizer and pesticide scattered near the elephant's remains,' Sulaiman of Pucok Turue said on Wednesday.
Sulaiman said the forest bordering the village was frequently crossed by wild elephants, and that almost every six months a herd of about 17 passed by, but so far they had never entered the village or the people's plantations.
'This is the first time an elephant has entered farmland or even the public road connecting the village to the district capital,' Sulaiman said.
He added that locals were used to the presence of elephants around their village, but said the condition had changed lately as they had started to enter residential areas.
'When elephants enter residential areas we get rid of them using fireworks that we prepare ourselves,' Sulaiman said.
The Aceh Natural Resources Conservation Agency (BKSDA) confirmed that the elephant was found dead in Pidie on Wednesday. The center also sent a team to examine the remains of the wild animal and conduct an autopsy on it.
BKSDA head, Genma Hasibuan, said the elephant was probably around six years old and had died from the poison in the fertilizers and pesticide it had consumed.
'A pile of fertilizer sacks was found some 100 meters from where the body of the elephant was found. Some were scattered and torn, most likely by the elephant,' Genma said.
The elephant was the eighth that has been found dead in Aceh so far this year.
Last week, a female elephant was found dead in Seumanah Jaya subdistrict, Ranto Peureulak district, apparently as a result of electrocution.
The death of the elephant was believed to have been caused by conflicts between the wild animals and local residents.
Some residents had been forced to stay away from their plantations after a herd of some 50 wild elephants took over the area.
Conflict between wild animals and people in the province has constantly increased in recent years alongside the increase in land and forest conversion, especially for oil palm plantations.
The International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) has raised the status of Sumatran elephants from crucial to critical, or just a step away from the status of extinct in the wild.
The more serious status of extinct has been given to some elephant species in Asia and Africa.
The current population of Sumatran elephants is estimated to be between 2,400 and 2,800, a 50 percent decline compared to the population estimate of 2007, in which between 3,000 and 5,000 elephants were recorded.
Apart from the threat of illegal hunting, Sumatran elephants, particularly the young, are also prone to the elephant endotheliotropic herpesvirus (EEHV) disease.
