A Wildlife Dept officer with the elephant carcass found in a Lahad Datu plantation.
KOTA KINABALU: The carcass of a bull Borneo pygmy elephant was found on an oil palm plantation in Sabah’s east coast Lahad Datu district.
Workers found the dead animal at Felcra Danum plantation, off Jalan Silam, at about 1pm on Thursday (Dec 19) and immediately notified their superior.
Lahad Datu wildlife officer Hairulnizam Hasnan said they were notified at 5.54pm.
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The Sabah Wildlife Department was subsequently informed and a probe has been launched to determine what killed the elephant, he said.
“As soon as we were notified, a team was sent to the location for preliminary investigations,” he said when contacted on Friday (Dec 20).
"We are checking to see if the elephant died of natural causes or if other elements were involved,” he added.
Hairulnizam said this latest death raised concern over threats to the species.
He urged anyone with information to come forward.
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On Sept 17, the carcass of a female calf was found on a farm in Begahak, also in Lahad Datu.
Sabah Wildlife director Roland Nuin said, however, that no foul play was involved, with initial investigations and a post-mortem indicating the elephant died of a "traumatic injury."
The elephant is believed to have been injured while roaming the forest suffered injuries while roaming the forest and died from haematoma lesions (blood clotting).
In June, the Borneo pygmy elephant, a distinct subspecies of the Asian elephant, was classified as endangered on the International Union for Conservation of Nature’s (IUCN) Red List of Threatened Species.
The population currently stands at around 1,000, with 400 being breeding adults.
This is far fewer than the 1,500 estimated by government officials and experts before.
Most of the elephants are found in Sabah while a small population exists in neighbouring Kalimantan, Indonesia.
