Killing of endangered Sumatran elephant sparks anger

Although Yongki’s notoriety among park rangers brings added emotion to this tragedy, it is an all-too-familiar scene in Indonesia, where 45 elephants were poached in 2014 alone.

Yongki, an endangered Sumatran elephant from Indonesia, was found dead close to the national park where he lived, said Timbul Batubara, a official at Bukit Barisan Selatan National Park.

Ivory hunters had hacked off his one-metre tusks, but his body bore no bullet wounds.

Keepers at the park told AFP they were “very shaken” by the sudden loss of the animal that they used to patrol the jungle for poachers and wild elephants, helping pushing the latter back when they waded into inhabited areas.

The elephant was involved in patrols aimed at reducing tensions, with the tame elephants stopping wild elephants from rampaging through villages.

Critically endangered Sumatran elephants are poached for their tusks.

“This sickens me: Poachers killed an elephant who helped rangers protect and patrol the forest!” Test results performed on his corpse show that Yongki was, in fact, poisoned, and his ivory tusks had been cut off with a chainsaw. Anwar Purwoto, Director of Sumatra and Borneo of WWF Indonesia, says that something needs to be done not only for Yongki but for all endangered elephants being killed for their ivory. “It’s also important to take action to avoid another incident in the future”.

There are fewer than 2,000 of his kind remaining in the world, and now his death marks yet another life taken at the hands of poachers.

There was anger on social media after pictures of the elephant’s body circulated, with users posting comments on Twitter next to the hashtag #RIPYongki.