While no news are forthcoming from the Sabah government, there are rumours of two more dead elephants.
KOTA KINABALU: It has been 10 months since the mass death of 14 pygmy elephants from poisoning and environmentalists here are puzzled as to why there’s been no effort to find the culprits.
Postmortems on the death discovered that the elephants had died as a result of toxicity in the food they ate.
State Tourism, Culture and Environment minister Masidi Manjun when disclosing the findings of the deaths in June this year vowed to find and bring the culprits to justice following a public outcry at the incident.
But no news has been forthcoming.
What has emerged are rumours of two more dead elephants.
A source told FMT that the deaths, which were unreported by the media, brought the total to 16 dead elephants in the proximity of Gunung Rara Forest Reserved.
Environmentalists, who work closely with the wildlife, expressed disappointment over the way the state government was investigating the case.
“It’s all very secretive and they are keeping information from the public,” the source said.
What is known is that a task force was set up by Sabah Wildlife Department jointly with Forestry Department, Yayasan Sabah, World Wildlife Fund and the police.
The task force however is still no where near to finding the culprits. No agency within the task force has given an update on the investigation. It’s been 10 months.
No updates
The environmentalist also questioned why there was no independent investigation over this incident.
“What is the reason for the no update and slow development in the investigation?” asked the source.
Speculations are rife that the secrecy and lack of updates is due to ‘connections’ a specific palm oil company in the area had with the powers-that-be. The elephants are considered as pests by the company.
The area known as FMU (Forest Management Unit) is commercial 2nd class Forest Reserved located in Kalabakan District.
It took the Sabah government six months and three different labs to announce that the pgymy elephants were poisoned.
Toxicology analysis by the Queensland Biosecurity Sciences Laboratory, Department of Agriculture, Fisheries & Forestry in Australia discovered from the liver samples of two elephants and a sample of white powder at a location where another elephant was found dead, showed a high level of heavy metal such as arsenic, cadmium, iron and chromium.
Findings by pathologists from the veterinary faculty at Universiti Putra Malaysia (UPM) and Thailand suggested that caustic or toxic elements had damaged the elephants’ digestive system.
Analysis by the chemistry department of Malaysia and Ramathibodi Poison Centre, Thailand, on the elephants’ kidneys, spleen and lymphoid tissues supported the findings although they could not trace the presence of toxic elements.
Despite all these findings there’s been no follow-up, at least not to public knowledge.
KOTA KINABALU: It has been 10 months since the mass death of 14 pygmy elephants from poisoning and environmentalists here are puzzled as to why there’s been no effort to find the culprits.Postmortems on the death discovered that the elephants had died as a result of toxicity in the food they ate.
State Tourism, Culture and Environment minister Masidi Manjun when disclosing the findings of the deaths in June this year vowed to find and bring the culprits to justice following a public outcry at the incident.
But no news has been forthcoming.
What has emerged are rumours of two more dead elephants.
A source told FMT that the deaths, which were unreported by the media, brought the total to 16 dead elephants in the proximity of Gunung Rara Forest Reserved.
Environmentalists, who work closely with the wildlife, expressed disappointment over the way the state government was investigating the case.
“It’s all very secretive and they are keeping information from the public,” the source said.
What is known is that a task force was set up by Sabah Wildlife Department jointly with Forestry Department, Yayasan Sabah, World Wildlife Fund and the police.
The task force however is still no where near to finding the culprits. No agency within the task force has given an update on the investigation. It’s been 10 months.
No updates
The environmentalist also questioned why there was no independent investigation over this incident.
“What is the reason for the no update and slow development in the investigation?” asked the source.
Speculations are rife that the secrecy and lack of updates is due to ‘connections’ a specific palm oil company in the area had with the powers-that-be. The elephants are considered as pests by the company.
The area known as FMU (Forest Management Unit) is commercial 2nd class Forest Reserved located in Kalabakan District.
It took the Sabah government six months and three different labs to announce that the pgymy elephants were poisoned.
Toxicology analysis by the Queensland Biosecurity Sciences Laboratory, Department of Agriculture, Fisheries & Forestry in Australia discovered from the liver samples of two elephants and a sample of white powder at a location where another elephant was found dead, showed a high level of heavy metal such as arsenic, cadmium, iron and chromium.
Findings by pathologists from the veterinary faculty at Universiti Putra Malaysia (UPM) and Thailand suggested that caustic or toxic elements had damaged the elephants’ digestive system.
Analysis by the chemistry department of Malaysia and Ramathibodi Poison Centre, Thailand, on the elephants’ kidneys, spleen and lymphoid tissues supported the findings although they could not trace the presence of toxic elements.
Despite all these findings there’s been no follow-up, at least not to public knowledge.
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