JAKARTA, NNC – The Minister of Environment and Forestry, Siti Nurbaya will conduct an evaluation of the “Conservation Response Unit-CRU” management after a tame elephant named Bunta was found dead in Jamur Batang Village, Bunin Village, Serbajadi Sub-district, East Aceh.
“We will evaluate (CRU). We will call them later along with the Director General,” she said, Wednesday (6/13/2018).
Sity Nurbaya admitted she is concerned about the killing of an elephant located just 400 meters away from the location of Serbuadi CRU. Supposedly the killing occured because of limited number of personnel.
The case of Bunta’s killing has been handled by local police, also assisted by the Ministry of Environment and Forestry and Natural Resources Conservation Center of Aceh.
Currently, the intestinal, spleen, cardiac and renal organ samplings have been performed for laboratory testing. Other samples taken were what was left of the left tusk and Bunta’s intact right tusk, measuring at 148 centimeters.
According to Natural Resources Conservation Center of Aceh, the temporary result shows that Bunta was poisoned. This is based on the damage and changes shown in the intestinal organs. Bunta’s bowel organs had internal bleeding, while the heart, liver and lungs were swollen.
“There was also cloudy fluid in the chest cavity and there were pieces of Kwini fruits around the intestine, so it can be said that the elephant was poisoned using kwini fruits. The fruits were also found around the corpse of the elephant,” said Siti, quoted by Antara.
The sap on unripe kwini fruits is known to be poisonous.
According to her, elephant distribution population in Nanggroe Aceh Darussalam Province (NAD) is found in 19 districts of 23 regencies/cities. The animals are scattered in conservation forest by as much as 25 percent, in protected and productive forests by 55 percent and the rest are in public locations.
Meanwhile, the results of the Natural Resources Conservation Center of Aceh’s survey in 2017 showed there were 539 elephants alive at the time of the survey.
