An assessment by wildlife experts, published on Thursday, concluded that agriculture, mining, logging and other human activities on the island of Borneo have made elephants living on the South Asian island at risk of extinction.
Data from the International Union for Conservation of Nature indicate that there are about a thousand Bornean elephants remaining in the wild, and the IUCN’s “red list” includes its assessment of the risk of extinction threatening animal species.
There is a category on the list of animals that are at greatest risk of extinction and efforts are needed to preserve them. The next category is the category of endangered animals, including the Borneo elephant, which faces a great risk of extinction if action is not taken.
“Their population is small and they could easily disappear if we let things develop without any conservation measures,” said Craig Hilton-Taylor, head of the unit that compiles the ITU’s red list of Bornean elephants.
The Federation stated that the area in which these elephants live, which are generally smaller than the elephants found in Africa, has decreased over the past 75 years, and this began with the intensive cutting of trees.
Since then, elephants have entered areas dominated by humans in search of food, which may cause them to destroy crops and be subject to killing by ranchers.
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