A Vicious Murder in Sabah

The body of the elephant which was photographed floating in the river was found by wildlife officers in a seated position. Image credit: Sabah Wildlife Department

Close-up of the dead elephant with one tusk sawn off. Image credit: Star Online 

Veterinarians and officers from the Sabah Wildlife Department conduct a post-mortem on the dead elephant. Picture: Sabah Wildlife Department 








Some of the bullets extracted from the elephant during the autopsy

A reward of RM30,000 is being offered for any credible information leading to the arrest of the poachers involved in the brutal killing of an adult bull elephant found in Sungai Udin, Kalabakan near Tawau in Sabah on Wednesday. 

Sabah Wildlife Department director Augustine Tuuga said the bounty which started off with only RM10,000 has tripled when an anonymous donor came forward to add-on RM10,000 after reading about the brutal killing. And then UK-based international conservation group Orangutan Appeal pledged another RM10,000. (Founder Sue Seward explained the reward was part of her pledge to Chief Minister Mohd Shafie Apdal when she met him last year that she would help Sabah in its conservation activities).

Apart from this, a major crackdown is being organized to track down those involved. Sabah wildlife officers will get police protection when tracking down the elephant killers. 

An autopsy found that the pachyderm’s carcass was riddled with more than 70 bullets, believed to be fired from close range before its tusks were sawn off. The animal was believed to have suffered greatly. 

Information from the Sabah Wildlife Department was that at least four or five poachers were involved in the killing of the adult male. 

The pygmy elephant (Scientific name: Elephas maximus borneensis) is totally protected under the Wildlife Conservation Enactment 1997, and anyone found guilty of killing it could be jailed up to five years and fined up to RM250,000.

Yesterday, Tawau district police chief ACP Peter Umbuas said the perpetrator(s) will also be charged under the Firearms Act 1960.

Elephants are continuously being killed over the years as they are considered a nuisance to farmers and plantation owners, whose plantations can sometimes be destroyed by them. 

In Sri Lanka, there were elephant deaths too.

Authorities have begun an investigation after seven of them were found dead last week from suspected poisoning.

On Friday, locals who found elephant carcasses in Habarana in Anuradhapura district, alerted authorities and by Saturday, the toll went up to seven. 

The Sri Lankan elephants (Scientific name: Elephas maximus maximus) were all females from the same herd, and one had been pregnant at the time. They were said to have been 10 to 15 years old, “in the prime of their lives”, according to Jayantha Jayawardena, managing trustee of the Biodiversity and Elephant Conservation Trust, an NGO.

Wildlife and security officials are continuing to search the area for signs of any more dead elephants. While it is not yet clear what caused their deaths, officials suspect they may have been poisoned by angry villagers for destroying crops. 

And on Monday, another elephant was found shot dead in Sri Lanka's central reserve – not sure if it is the same place because news reports are scant with details. 

It is also unclear if the deaths are related. 

Killing wild elephants is, of course, illegal in the country, though elephant populations frequently come into conflict with rural communities. 

Official data points to nearly 300 elephant deaths in 2018 due to electrocution, railway track accidents, ‘hakka patas’ or traps made of explosives, and gunshots. 

The killing of innocent animals is really tragic.