A pygmy elephant gored its handler to demise at a wildlife park in Malaysia’s japanese Sabah state in a Christmas Day tragedy, conservation officers mentioned Thursday.
Joe Fred Lansou, 49, was treating an injured calf when one other captive grownup elephant immediately “tusked him very badly” within the chest and stomach, Sabah Wildlife director Augustine Tuuga instructed AFP.
“He died on the scene,” Tuuga added.
The tragedy occurred on December 25 on the Lok Kawi Wildlife Park on Borneo island.
“It’s actually an unlucky incident. We are going to undertake an investigation to find out the trigger,” the state’s minister for tourism, tradition and atmosphere, Jafry Ariffin, instructed AFP.
The park serves as a sanctuary for 16 pygmy elephants, an endangered species, however has simply six employees members to handle them.
The elephant that killed its handler was the only survivor of a lethal poisoning that left a herd of 14 Borneo pygmy elephants useless 9 years in the past, the Star newspaper reported on Thursday.
In December 2011, a wild pygmy elephant killed an Australian vacationer on the Tabin Wildlife Reserve within the east coast of Sabah state.
Pygmy elephants, distinctive to Borneo island, are a definite subspecies of mainland Asian elephants. They’re thought-about endangered, with about 2,000 left in Sabah state.
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