THREE more endangered Borneo pygmy elephants have been found dead in Malaysia of suspected poisoning, wildlife officials say, adding to 10 carcasses discovered earlier this month.
They may have ingested poison spread by oil palm plantation workers to keep "pests" from eating the palm fruit, said Laurentius Ambu, wildlife department director of the Malaysian state of Sabah on Borneo island.
He warned that the elephants travel in herds numbering up to dozens and still more carcasses could turn up.
"We are trying to comb more areas. My hunch is that there may be more," he told AFP. "I don't think it's an accident."
Ambu said three highly decomposed carcasses were found on Wednesday in Sabah's remote Gunung Rara Forest Reserve not far from where officials found the 10 other dead pygmy elephants, a rare sub-species of the Asian elephant.
State officials on Tuesday released photos of the original 10 pachyderms, including a heartbreaking shot of a baby elephant nuzzling its dead mother.
The young elephant appears unharmed and has been taken to a wildlife park in the state, Ambu said.
A chemists' report on the 10 dead animals would be completed next week and could reveal what killed them, he added.
WWF-Malaysia says about 1,200 Borneo pygmy elephants, which are smaller and have more rounded features than full-sized Asian elephants, are estimated to be left in the wild.
Activists say deforestation -- for logging and to clear land for agriculture, especially palm oil plantations -- severely threaten the habitat of the elephants and other endangered Borneo wildlife.
Borneo is a vast island shared by Malaysia, Indonesia and Brunei. Its once-vast rain forests, considered among the world's richest concentrations of biodiversity, are dwindling fast.
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