A Sumatran elephant has gone on a rampage and killed a farmer in Indonesia’s Aceh province, officials said on Monday.https://scudnewsng.com
The victim was attacked on Saturday while he and other residents were trying to stop a herd of elephants from raiding crops in Central Aceh district, said Agus Arianto, the head of the provincial Nature Conservancy Agency.
“This human-animal conflict has been going on for some time and we need to take action to stop this.”
Iwan Ilham Abadi, a district official, said one of the elephants began rampaging after a dog belonging to a local barked.
“The victim climbed a tree to escape the elephant but the tree was too low. He was snatched by the elephant’s trunk and thrown to the ground.
“The victim died in hospital from his injuries.”
The Sumatran elephant, a subspecies of the Asian elephant, is categorized as critically endangered by the International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources (IUCN).
There are estimated to be fewer than 3,000 Sumatran elephants in the wild, with their number dwindling as a result of the conversion of their forest habitats into agricultural land and palm oil plantations, according to conservationists.
