Electric wire fences set up to keep marauding elephants out of farms and villages in Indonesia’s Aceh province worked well at least at first. When the elephants realized the electric current did not extend to the fence posts, they knocked them down, causing the whole barrier to collapse. Sumatran elephants are “not just clever […]
Saving Sumatran Elephants Starts with Counting Them. Indonesia Won’t Say How Many Are Left. Efforts to save the Sumatran elephant have been hamstrung by the Indonesian government’s delay in releasing an updated conservation plan, which includes the latest population estimates.The last.
COT GIREK, Indonesia Junaidi, the leader of an elephant patrol team in this Sumatran village, has a daunting task. The large animals, with their forest habitat destroyed, often enter the village in search of food, putting homes and crops at risk. When Mongabay met the 41-year-old farmer in June, he was still bleary-eyed after […]
Podcast: With just 10 years left to save Sumatran elephants, what can be done now?
by Mongabay.com on 22 January 2021
In Sumatra, elephants’ forested habitat has been replaced recently at a rapid pace for commercial activities like oil palm plantations, pulp and paper production, and other uses.
The total Sumatran elephant population was estimated to be no more than 2,800 individuals in 2007, but they likely number about half that now.
It’s been said that there’s just 10 years left to save this critically endangered species, and experts that Mongabay spoke with say that this is probably optimistic: however, taking the meaningful actions they suggest could succeed during that time and would have additional benefits for other wildlife plus human communities, too.