(IN): 4 rare elephants poisoned in Indonesia

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http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/Earth/4-rare-elephants-poisoned-in-Indonesia/\

articleshow/4617751.cms

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*4 rare elephants poisoned in Indonesia*

*4 Jun 2009, 1912 hrs IST, AP*

 

PEKANBARU, Indonesia: Four rare Sumatran

elephants<http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/Earth/4-rare-elephants-poisoned-in-\

Indonesia/articleshow/4617751.cms#>were

found dead in northwestern Indonesia near an oil palm plantation and

are believed to have been poisoned by villagers, a conservationist said on

Thursday.

 

The carcasses of the protected giant animals

<http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/Earth/4-rare-elephants-poisoned-in-Indonesia\

/articleshow/4617751.cms#>were

in a forest 560 miles (900 kilometers) from the capital, Jakarta, said Eddy

Santoso, head of the local Conservation and Natural Resources Agency. The

forest land has been rented by the government to local farmers for

commercial purposes.

 

The latest elephant carcass was discovered partly burnt Thursday, making it

difficult to determine whether it was male or female, Santoso said.

 

He said it was apparently burned with used tires. On Monday the decaying

carcass of a six-year-old female elephant was discovered near two other dead

females found last Thursday.

 

Just 3,000 Sumatran elephants remain, some of them in the

forest<http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/Earth/4-rare-elephants-poisoned-in-Ind\

onesia/articleshow/4617751.cms#>in

Riau province. Parts of the forest were converted into oil palm

plantations managed by villagers with the assistance of the state-owned

plantation company Perkebunan Nusantara.

 

Santoso said he suspects the elephants were poisoned by villagers running a

plantation for oil palms, which are used to make palm oil, in an adjoining

forest.

 

Elephants, confronted by dwindling jungle, sometimes run amok in farmland or

villages, trampling crops and killing humans.

 

``Maybe the villagers were worried the wild elephants would attack their

plantations,'' Santoso said. ``They probably scattered poison there.''

 

Last month, conservationists came upon two giant males that had been

poisoned with cyanide-laced pineapples in the same area, with their tusks

removed.

 

Police and the agency were investigating the latest case. Indonesia's

endangered elephants, tigers, rhinos and orangutans are increasingly

threatened by shrinking jungle habitat, which is cut and burned to make way

for plantations or sold as

lumber<http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/Earth/4-rare-elephants-poisoned-in-Ind\

onesia/articleshow/4617751.cms#>.

 

 

Palm fruit is pressed to make palm oil, used in cosmetics, food and

increasingly for clean-burning fuel. The profitable commodity is one of

Indonesia's leading export products and a billion-dollar industry.

 

 

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