Thirty-Year-Old Elephant Found Shot Dead In Malaysia

Malaysian police are investigating after a 30-year-old elephant was found dead. Having been shot twice in the head and once in its rear, the bull's trunk and tusks had also been removed.

According to Malaysian news outlet the Star Online, Bukit Aman Internal Security and Public Order director, Commander Datuk Seri Zulkifli Abdullah said the elephant is thought to have been killed a week ago.

"The dead animal was found some 15km from the main road of Jalan Gerik-Kuala Kangsar," he said.

After receiving a tip-off, a team including police, General Operation Forces (the light infantry arm of the Royal Malaysia Police) and the Department of Wildlife and National Parks arrested four men aged between 40 and 49 at various locations on Sunday.

"One of them led the police to a house in Kampung Padang Jeri where they found two rifles, two homemade shotguns, RM10,500 (£1,900 / $2,700) in cash, 255 bullets, wire traps, machetes, chainsaw and various hunting equipment," said Zulkifli.

"We also seized a deer horn and seven bone fragments, believed to be from a tiger. All four suspects will be remanded until March 18 to be investigated for possessing illegal firearms, unlicensed weapons or ammunitions and for carrying weapons in public."

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Malaysia: Two more pygmy elephants found dead without tusks

KOTA KINABALU: Another two Borneo pygmy elephants were found dead without their tusks in eastern Sabah.

One of the carcasses of the elephants was located in a plantation near the Dumpas area on Sept 10 while the other was found floating along the Kinabatangan river close to the Danau Girang Field Research Centre a few days ago.

Sources said it was difficult to pinpoint the area where the second bull was killed before the carcass was dumped into the river.

Sabah has been faced with the threat of wildlife poaching, especially of its endangered elephants which numbers around 2,000 in forests in eastern Sabah.

Six pygmy elephants, including the unique sabre tusk jumbo, have been reported killed over the last six months.

The Sabah Wildlife Department said they have no new leads or suspects in both the new cases.

Nevertheless, investigations are ongoing to identify the perpetrators.

The department's director, Augustine Tuuga, said the death of the elephant in Dumpas revealed no external injuries.

He said that they have taken blood samples to establish the cause of death while the second elephant might be a victim of poaching.

Wildlife officials were also probing the case of a green turtle found butchered on the shores of Pulau Bum Bum in Semporna which was highlighted in a Facebook posting on Wednesday.

At least nine dead turtles were seen in the photo uploaded on Facebook.

Tuuga said they were verifying the reports and carrying an investigation into the deaths.

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Bong Su is dead, broken by cramped and impoverished zoo conditions

Bong Su, Melbourne Zoo's beloved bull elephant, is dead. His death is a tragedy: zoo veterinarians euthanised him after an assessment that the pain he felt from "arthritis" could not be relieved. While this may be the case, Bong Su's pain was not natural. It was due to the conditions in which he was kept for many years at Melbourne Zoo. In reality, Bong Su should have been in his prime.

Captured from the wild in Malaysia, Bong Su and a female elephant, Mek Kapah, were shipped to Melbourne in 1977-78. They were young calves, no more than five years old.

For many years, Bong Su and Mek Kapah lived alone in what the zoo now calls its "heritage elephant exhibit", an old-fashioned, moated enclosure. During their time in the exhibit, both elephants developed severe behavioural problems involving repetitive "stereotypic" actions that are now understood to help relieve chronic stress. Mek Kapah swayed in one spot for years, actually wearing away the concrete under her front feet. Bong Su walked in small circles for hours at a time, putting particular strain on his front feet; video evidence showed Bong Su walked up to 15 kilometres a night in a tight circle, in his own waste, inside his barn. The constant torsion on his front feet resulted in chronic infections.

Confined in separate small barn-stalls for 16 hours out of 24 for many years, both elephants led impoverished lives. In the late 1990s, new expertise was brought in and a radical new approach was taken to relieve the stereotypic behaviour. The elephants were no longer confined on concrete floors at night. A weight-loss program was introduced for Mek Kapah. Exercise and training regimes were implemented for both elephants with the aim of stimulating and engaging them and building their confidence. In 2003 the elephants were moved to more spacious facilities. They evidently were invigorated by their new surroundings. Still, the situation was far from ideal.

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Killing of wildlife goes on in Sabah

The slaughter of Sabah’s wildlife continued this month with little signs of slowing down as two critically-endangered Bornean pygmy elephants were killed for tusks and at least nine endangered green turtles were found butchered on the east coast.

The killings sent fresh shockwaves through the conservationist community, which appealed to the public to help put a stop to this.

A dead bull elephant was found floating down the Kinabatangan river close to the Danau Girang Research Centre (DGRC) on Monday, while another was found dead at a plantation in the Dumpas area of Kalabakan on Sept 10.

“This cannot go unpunished. We need to bring these criminals to court,” conservationist Dr Benoit Goossens said.


Dr Goossens, the director of the Kinabatangan-based DGRC, said that with fewer than 2,000 elephants in Sabah, the population would be in jeopardy if the killing of mature bulls goes on.

“Elephants are already threatened by habitat loss and conflict with humans. If you add poaching, the species will not survive. We must get rid of the poachers and traders,” he said.

Sabah Wildlife Department director Augustine Tuuga said the tusks may be bound for Indonesia, where they are used as dowry in some communities.

On the turtles found on Pulau Bum Bum in Semporna district, he said reports indicated that all nine were stripped of their flesh and the lower shell, called the plastron.

He said the turtle killings may have been committed by members of the same group detained by the Malaysian Maritime Enforcement Agency (MMEA) early this year.

Augustine said the MMEA detained a boat from southern Philippines, with four men on board, bound for Semporna loaded with turtle flesh and plastron. The department prosecuted the four men and they were jailed two years and fined RM100,000 each.

Augustine said the wildlife authorities needed the help of villagers and other agencies in protecting endangered animals.

“The killings have to stop but we cannot do it alone,” he said.

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