The trunk of a one-year-old Sumatran elephant was amputated in Indonesia after she was caught in a wire snare trap set by hunters. The trap deeply cut into the female elephant’s trunk.
On Sunday, she was seen badly injured with part of the snare trap still attached to her trunk in Alue Meuraksa village in Aceh province.
A team of Aceh Natural Resources Conservation Agency (BKSDA) rescued the animal and decided on Monday that part of her trunk had to be amputated. Although the condition of the elephant calf is getting better, she still has difficulty eating and needs special treatment.
Sumatran elephants are listed as critically endangered on the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List of Threatened Species. The animals are hunted, have lost their living space to humans and are killed in human-elephant conflicts.
Indonesia has experienced one of the highest rates of deforestation, which has resulted in local extinctions of elephants in many areas.
Conservationists say that the coronavirus pandemic has led to increased poaching in Sumatra as villagers turn to hunting for economic reasons. In July, a Sumatran elephant was found beheaded with his tusks missing. The 12-year-old-animal had been poisoned.
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