TEMPO.CO, Banda Aceh - A female Sumatran elephant was found dead in a ditch inside Peunaron Lama forest, Peunaron Sub-district, East Aceh District, Aceh Province, northern-most Sumatra Island.
"Yes, there was a dead elephant, we received the information on Friday (3/4) afternoon," Serbajadi Police Chief Adjunct Commissioner Justin Tarigan said in East Aceh, on Saturday.
Following the information, a joint team comprising officers of the Serbajadi Sectoral Police, Leuser Conservation Forum (FKL), Forest Security service (Pamhut) and the Natural Resources Conservation Office (BKSDA) ) of Aceh, went to forest and walked for around 11 kilometers.
They found a Sumatran elephant carcass in decomposed condition and head bone.
The Sumatran elephant was believed to have died about two months ago.
"The 1.5 year-old female Sumatran elephant was most likely to have fallen into a trench used to be a river, and died there," he said.
Sumatran forests are home to some of the worlds rarest plant species and among remaining landscapes where elephants, tigers, and orangutans coexist.
Forest loss particularly due to plantation, development projects, and forest fires, however, has heightened the human-elephant conflict, leading to the death of an estimated 35 elephants between 2012 and 2015.
There are now fewer than 1,700 Sumatran elephants (elephas maximus sumatranus) left in the wild, according to some reports.
