Death of Umi sparks concern over electric threat to Sumatran elephants
This headline from Mongabay highlights a very real wildlife problem – one where the ‘solution’ is itself creating even more problems – dead elephants.
” Electrified fences set up around farms are an emerging threat to the critically endangered Sumatran elephant, conservationists told Mongabay Indonesia following a series of deaths this year in Aceh and Jambi provinces.”
Here are the facts:
- Electric fences are common deterrents in Africa and Asia to prevent elephants from accessing human settlements and agricultural land.
- A civil society organization has blamed the death of an elephant on the verge of a plantation in Indonesia’s Jambi province on an electric fence.
- A Mongabay review of local media reports indicate there have been at least three deaths since 2022 attributed to electric fencing, though it’s unclear whether the animals were killed by the current or ensnared by the wiring.
CRITICALLY ENDANGERED
The Sumatran elephant a sub species of the Asian elephant and found only on the island of Sumatra, and no where else in the world. It is listed as Critically Endangered by the IUCN, which means this species faces a high risk of becoming extinct in the wild in the very near future.
Elephants are the world’s largest herbivore, and eat over 200 species of plants and fruit. They also travel long distances and defecate around 18 times a day! This makes them the worlds largest seed disperser and many plants rely on them for their seed dispersal. Without the elephant disappearing and spreading these seeds, many rainforest trees would die out. Rainforest’s need elephants!
FROM IUCN MEETING….
Elephant range States from Southeast Asia review implementation of the CITES MIKE Programme
The Asian elephant (Elephas maximus) is classified as Endangered, according to The IUCN Red List of Threatened Specie, due to poaching, illegal trade, habitat loss and fragmentation, as well as human-elephant conflict. In cooperation with the Secretariat of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES), and their Monitoring the Illegal Killing of Elephants (MIKE) programme – a site-based system designed to monitor trends in levels of illegal killing of elephants and build capacity in sites across the range of African and Asian elephants – IUCN Asia is providing support on the delivery of the MIKE Programme in five elephant range States in Southeast Asia: Indonesia, Lao PDR, Malaysia, Thailand, and Viet Nam. This project is funded by the US Department of State, Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs (INL).
On 30-31 January 2024, range States and partners gathered in Hua Hin, Thailand, to share progress of their efforts to implement commitments to the MIKE Programme in Southeast Asia. Whilst good progress has been made on MIKE, a common challenge identified by participants during the meeting was the lack of resources and capacity available to address the growing risks of human-elephant conflict.
- sources: Mongabay website; IUCN Red List; https://www.sumatranelephantproject.org ;
