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Pekanbaru. Laboratory tests confirmed suspicions that three Sumatran elephants recently found dead in a forest concession area in Riau were deliberately poisoned, a local nature conservation official said on Thursday.

“The elephants were deliberately killed with organophosphate pesticide which is usually used to kill animals such as boars,” said Edi Susanto, head of the Riau Natural Resources Conservation Agency (BKSDA).

Tests conducted on samples of ingested materials from the dead elephants showed that they had been poisoned, and the type used was also determined from the samples. The agency found that the poison had been spread on leaves and the stems of palm fruit bunches. “There was a lot of poison spread on oil palm stems and leaves in areas within a radius of one kilometer from the site where the dead animals were found,” he said.

The elephants were found dead last May in a concession area owned by PT Rimba Peranap Indah, a subsidiary of PT Riau Andalan Pulp and Paper. The area shares a border with an oil palm plantation owned by state plantation company PT PN V, located on the border between Pelalawan and Indragiri Hulu districts.

A 20-year-old female and a 5-year-old calf were among those found dead. The carcass of a third elephant was found burned.

BKSDA had reported the incident to the police and called for an investigation to catch the culprits, Susanto said.

He suspected that the animals’ deaths were a sequel in the conflict between Sumatran elephants and humans as the Peranap area was within the elephants’ home range inside Tesso Nilo National Park.

“This is an extraordinary occurrence because four elephants were found dead within a week. So, the legal process against the culprits must be pursued,” he said.

Meanwhile, Syamsidar, a spokesman of the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) Riau, said there was no excuse for the police to shelve the case because there was sufficient evidence that a crime had been committed.

Under existing law, a person who kills a protected animal faces a maximum sentence of five years in prison and a fine of up to Rp200 million. The Peranap police in Indragiri Hulu are now investigating the case.


Antara