A baby elephant belonging to the endangered Sumatran elephant subspecies was born Tuesday in a national park on the Indonesian island of Sumatra, authorities announced, welcoming the birth, the second in a month.
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Weighing 78 kg, the baby elephant, whose sex was not specified, was born in Way Kambas National Park, announced the Indonesian Ministry of Environment and Forestry.
The baby elephant was born at an elephant center located inside the national park, the ministry said.
Park staff are monitoring the health of the mother and her calf.
Sumatran elephants belong to a subspecies classified as critically endangered, with their total population estimated at between 2,400 and 2,800 individuals worldwide, according to the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF), an advocacy organization. the environment and wildlife.
A male elephant calf was born in November in the same national park, and is in good health. This was the second birth of a baby elephant in 2023.
On Saturday, a Sumatran rhino, a species on the verge of extinction, was born in Way Kambas National Park.
The WWF estimates that there are fewer than 80 Sumatran rhinos left in the world, living mainly on the island of Sumatra and Borneo, an island shared by Indonesia, Malaysia and the Sultanate of Brunei.
“The good news comes to us one after the other,” said Environment Minister Siti Nurbaya Bakar in a press release.
“This good news should encourage us Indonesians to continue efforts to preserve protected species in the country,” he added.
The elephant population is threatened by poaching, with the ivory of their tusks arousing strong desire on the illegal market for wildlife products.
Indonesia is engaged in an ongoing fight against wildlife crime. Several cases of elephant poisoning have been reported in recent years.
Deforestation has also reduced the natural habitat of elephants, which has led to conflict situations in agricultural areas where crops have been damaged.