Jakarta (The Jakarta Post/ANN) - The
Sumatran elephant could be extinct in the wild within three decades unless
immediate steps are taken to slow the breakneck pace of deforestation,
environmentalists warned on Tuesday.
The International Union for Conservation of
Nature recently listed the species as "critically endangered" after
their numbers dropped to between 2,400 and 2,800 from an estimated 5,000 in
1985, according to the Associated Press.
The decline is largely due to destruction of
their habitat, with forests all across the Indonesian island of Sumatra being
cleared for timber, oil palm and pulp and paper plantations.
Sumatra has some of the most significant
populations of Asian elephants outside of India and Sri Lanka and is also home
to tigers, orangutans and rhinos.
"The Sumatran elephant joins a growing
list of Indonesian species that are critically endangered," Carlos Drews
of the conservation group WWF said in a statement on Tuesday. "Unless
urgent and effective conservation action is taken, these magnificent animals
are likely to go extinct within our lifetime."
Indonesia's endangered elephants sometimes
venture into populated areas searching for food and destroy crops or attack
humans, making them unpopular with villagers.
Some are shot or poisoned with cyanide-laced
fruit, while others are killed by poachers for their ivory.
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