GRAPHIC VIDEO: R.I.P… PAWS Says Goodbye To Beloved Asian Elephant Annie.‏

It is with very heavy hearts that we at PAWS share news of the passing of our dear friend, Asian elephant Annie – best known for her joyous romps in the lake that is part of our Asian elephant habitat at the ARK 2000 sanctuary. She had endured severe arthritis and foot disease, which gradually worsened over many years. After it became clear that the medications and treatments used to treat her chronic conditions were no longer providing relief, she was humanely euthanized on Tuesday, while lying on soft soil and surrounded by those who cared for and loved her. At age 55, she was among the oldest Asian elephants in North America.

“Everyone at PAWS will miss Annie. She was a very special elephant,” said PAWS president Ed Stewart. “I’m proud we were able to give her a peaceful and more natural life at the PAWS sanctuary for nearly 20 years. We restored her dignity and gave her the care and respect she deserved.”

Annie was born in Assam, India, around 1960, and taken from her mother at a very early age for use in the zoo industry. She was immediately put on display in a zoo in Wisconsin, where she spent much of her life chained to a concrete floor.

In 1994, the nation was shocked by videos showing Annie and her companion Tammy being cruelly trained. While held by ropes and chains handlers “broke” the elephants, mercilessly beating them into submission. This was no undercover video; the zoo recorded the training session as instruction for other keepers. (This footage was included in the 2013 HBO documentary, “An Apology to Elephants,” narrated by actress and comedienne – and friend of PAWS – Lily Tomlin.) Under public pressure, the zoo opted to relocate the elephants to PAWS.

Annie arrived at PAWS in 1995, rescued from the Wisconsin zoo with Tammy, who passed away in 2003 at age 52 from chronic foot disease and arthritis – the leading causes of death for elephants in captivity. Despite their great intelligence and size, in captivity elephants are forced to live in small, barren enclosures that cause a multitude of physical and psychological harms. Their social, physical and psychological complexities may make them one of the most deprived of all captive wild animals.

Annie keeps cool in the lake, provided for all the animals; this is as free as any captive animal can be, pure heaven for all!

Annie’s life at the PAWS ARK 2000 sanctuary was far closer to what elephants naturally need. She had a sprawling habitat in which to roam, elephant companions, soft grass to lie down and nap on, and a lake in which she loved to bob, splash and swim. It was always a joy to see Annie enjoying her habitat – something we often shared with you on our Facebook page and on Youtube.

Over the years, Annie experienced a variety of health problems, including an injury caused by a bull elephant during forced mating. Her arthritis and foot problems had progressed, including a severe foot abscess. In 2012, Annie tested positive for tuberculosis, but never exhibited symptoms of the disease. Her general condition remained good, including normal appetite and weight, but Annie’s arthritis and foot disease ultimately made movement unbearably painful for her. Tuberculosis has been diagnosed in many elephants used for circuses and to give rides, and in zoos such as the Oregon Zoo and St. Louis Zoo.

It is a sad fact that by the time most elephants come to PAWS they are suffering the debilitating effects of a life spent in inadequate captive conditions. Annie was no exception. Had she remained in her native home, she likely would have been leading a full and enriched life today, surrounded by a family of her own.

“Our job at PAWS is to restore dignity to captive elephants and, for elephants like Annie and Tammy, give them a life free from beatings and chains,” explained Ed. “We did our best for them, and continue to make a significant difference in the lives of all the elephants and other wild animals under our care.”

As is customary for all elephants that pass away at PAWS, a necropsy is being performed on Annie’s remains by pathologists from U.C. Davis Veterinary Medical Teaching Hospital and tissue samples sent to a laboratory.

PAWS thanks everyone who has ever cared about and supported Annie and helped give her – and all of the wild animals at PAWS – a life of dignity, serenity, and love. On behalf of Annie and everyone at PAWS, we thank you from the bottom of our hearts

“This next video shows pure brute strength by keepers to make Annie lay down. Watch closely & see how the bull hook is gouged into her skin to make her first lay down, then stand; Annie cries out in pain as she is manhandled, she could easily have harmed her trainers, but she didn’t. Now, listen very closely as the keepers talk about how to get her to lay down, near a diagram, around 5.29..(I can hear what sounds like an electrical shock prod) …I bet they were using it on Annie…vile acts of cruelty; just for the publics entertainment!! Annie must have thought she was in heaven when she was moved to PAWS; she finally had some freedom to behave like an elephant should, larking about in the lake & making friends with other free elephants,. I’m so grateful to PAWS for giving Annie her freedom & final home, her final resting place of peace, tranquility & compassion…God bless her soul!”

1989: Zoo training tape of Annie.

Warning: Contains graphic images that are hard to watch.

Uploaded on 5 Oct 2011

Asian elephant Annie, and her close companion Tamara, shared an elephant barn/enclosure at the Milwaukee Zoo until 1994, when videotaped recordings of cruel beatings and abusive training elicited public demands that the two elephants be sent to the PAWS sanctuary. Today Annie (Tamara died in 2002) spends her days roaming and grazing among the trees, swimming in the lake, dusting and mud-bathing before lying down to sleep on a sunny hillside.

The archaic management of elephants by zoos that have been using the Free Contact system, has been the focus of controversy between AZA and animal welfare organizations, as well as many zoo professionals who advocate the use of Protected Contact management, a safer and kinder approach to elephant management.

Free Contact allows elephant keepers and handlers to share the same space with the elephant while using the cruel weapon known as the bullhook, the ankus, or the “guide”, to control the animal and to protect the handler. This system has caused injury and death to keepers and considerable suffering to elephants. Protected Contact requires that keepers work with the animal behind barriers and eliminates the use of any weapon or punishment for the elephant. It is a system that ensures the safety of the keeper and the welfare and comfort of the elephant.

In August of this year, The Association of Zoos and Aquariums (AZA) board of directors has approved new standards that will maximize occupational safety of elephant care professionals at AZA-accredited and AZA-certified facilities. The recent release of this new policy by AZA is a giant first step toward maximizing the physical and psychological health of the elephants as well.

The Elephant Manager’s Association opposes these new standards. In a recent statement, EMA wrote: “It is the opinion of the EMA that evaluations and decisions of this sort are best made by elephant care professionals intimately involved in the program as opposed to policy makers that casually observe from a distance.”

PO Box 849

Galt, CA 95632

(209) 745-2606

info@pawsweb.org

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 “TORTURE CHAMBER…JUST THINK ON, THE NEXT TIME YOU SEE AN ELEPHANT IN A CIRCUS OR EVEN A ZOO…THIS IS HOW THEY WERE FIRST SNATCHED FROM THEIR MOTHERS IN THE WILD; THEN TORTURED, SO THEY WOULD ACCEPT THE COMMANDS OF HUMANS; FOR THE SOUL PURPOSE OF ENTERTAINING HUMANS…HORRIFIC!!”

 VIEWER DISCRETION ADVISED…BUT IF YOU WANT TO KNOW HOW ELEPHANTS SPIRITS ARE BROKEN SO HUMANS CAN USE THEM…PLEASE WATCH!!

Published on 8 Mar 2012

Here are the images of the training of wild elephants that are caught for the tourist trade. Please remind yourself and tell others that by visiting elephant camps you are supporting this!

Edwin Wiek of the WFFT and Khun Lek (Sangduan Chailert) of ENP are now targeted by the DNP for speaking up about the illegal wild elephant poaching and trade. This video shows what the DNP doesn’t want you to see or know about!

Say NO To Palm Oil For the Environment, The Animals & Your Health

“I know I have just recently done a post on palm oil, but the following web site gives so much more  information…stuff I had no idea about! So please, protect the environment & save the orangutan…read the following then visit the links at the end. Please also sign the petitions below!!

 A Bit more info on Palm Oil…I think you might find useful; find out more at the link below:-

Rescue by COP

Palm oil is mainly used in foods, cosmetics and cleaning agents, but it can also be found in some bio-fuels. This fatty vegetable oil is mixed with a number of other fuels and liquids to create an ‘Eco-Friendly‘ bio-fuel.

This ‘Eco-Friendly’ bio-fuel has already become mandatory in numerous countries including Malaysia (where 5% of all fuel must contain palm oil), and if it continues to be voted into petrol stations around the world, the future for our orange primate cousins and their rainforest homes will be very bleak.

In supermarkets in Australia, New Zealand, the United States, United Kingdom and many European countries, 50% of all baked goods, confectionery, spreads, body products, cosmetics, cleaning agents, air fresheners and sometimes even paint and printer ink contain palm oil, and the average first-world citizen consumes at least 10kg of palm oil each year.

These statistics dramatically increase with countries that span across Asia. Fact is, a large percentage of products in your household will contain palm oil, and almost anything that contains a high level of saturated fat will have palm oil in it (except for some dairy products, which gain their saturated fat from full cream milk).

However, you often don’t know if products you are buying contribute to this detrimental destruction?You see, there are no laws on the mandatory labelling of palm oil in most countries, so palm oil is often hidden under the name of ‘vegetable oil’ or over 170 other names.

This means that consumers are blinded as to which products they buy are contributing the destruction of our natural world and it’s inhabitance.

 Due to its high saturated fat content, palm oil promotes heart disease, increases cholesterol levels, raises blood pressure and therefore is a contributing factor to obesity. These four health issues are the main causes of one of the world’s biggest killers; cardiovascular disease (also known as heart disease). This extremely common disease claims one life every two seconds. Palm oil is also high in Omega 6 fatty acid, which is associated with arthritis, inflammation, and even breast and prostate cancer.

Some people argue that we need palm oil in this day and age in order to produce certain foods and products. But what about 30 years ago? 

Back then, palm oil was virtually non-existent in most supermarkets in the first-world, so why is there such a high demand for it now? Unhealthy, processed foods, chemicals to add to cleaning products, and fuel. We don’t need palm oil.

Alternatives to palm oil include: canola oil, peanut oil, sunflower oil and coconut oil, but unfortunately none as cheap or efficient, which is why companies are reluctant to switch.

Did you know that each and everyone of us is fuelling one of the world’s biggest ecological disasters and acts of primate genocide in history? 

Despite this amazing biodiversity and delicate web of species, AN AREA THE SIZE OF 300 FOOTBALL FIELDS OF RAINFOREST IS CLEARED EACH HOUR in Indonesia and Malaysia to make way for the production of one vegetable oil.

That’s 6 football fields destroyed each minute. This vegetable oil is called palm oil, and is found in hundreds of the everyday products, from baked goods and confectionery, to cosmetics and cleaning agents… many of which you buy in your weekly shopping.

Due to the massive international demand for palm oil, palm oil plantations are rapidly replacing the rainforest habitat of the critically endangered orangutan; with

Orangutan killed to make way for Oil plantation

over 90% of their habitat already destroyed in the last 20 years.

Orangutans are some of our closest relatives, sharing approximately 97% of their DNA with humans. Orangutan means ‘Person of the jungle’ in the Indonesian language. It is estimated that 6 to 12 of these ‘jungle people’ are killed each day for palm oil.

These gentle creatures are either killed in the deforestation process, when they wonder into a palm oil plantation looking for food, or in the illegal pet trade after they’ve been captured and kept as pets in extremely poor conditions and provided with extremely poor nutrition. 

Orangutans are considered as pests by the palm oil industry. In the deforestation process, workers are told that if wildlife gets in the way, they are to do whatever is necessary in order to dispose them, no matter how inhumane. Often orangutans are run over by logging machinery, beat to death, buried alive or set on fire… all in the name of palm oil.

Government data has shown that over 50,000 orangutans have already died as a result of deforestation due to palm oil in the last two decades. Experts say that if this pattern of destruction and exploitation continues, these intelligent acrobats of the jungle will be extinct in the wild within 3 to 12 years (as early as 2015). It is also thought that their jungle habitat will be completely gone within 20 years (approximately 2033).

Around 50 million tons of palm oil is produced annually; with almost all of that being non-sustainable palm oil, that replaces 12 million hectares of dense, bio-diverse rainforest. That’s the equivalent landmass of North Korea deforested each year for palm oil alone! 

Think of the consequences next time you do your weekly shopping; the consequences not only for orangutans and other animals, but for us as the human race; for we cannot survive without the rainforests either.

We have a choice, orangutans do not.

Please Read more: http://www.saynotopalmoil.com/

Pictures of Orangutans on site -Click link below: – Locked away, chained up, boxed in – Rescues by COP

“When we saw the big male approaching our camp we were afraid. So we quickly ran over to him, doused him in petrol and set him on fire.” – Fermin, a bulldozer driver at a logging sight in Borneo.”

Images –  Viewer discretion advised:-http://www.saynotopalmoil.com/images.php

Rescues by COP – Centre for OrangutanProtection:http://www.orangutanprotection.com/indexina.php?lang=eng&menu=show_weblog_index1.php

Willie Smits

Dedicated rescue teams, such as COP, devote their time to rescuing orangutans from logging sights, palm oil plantations, zoos/ animal parks and pet owners.

These strong teams face the reality of the palm oil crisis each day, being their first-hand to save the orangutans from their horrible fate.

Groups like COP rescue many orangutan from the local people who have been keeping the apes as pets in small cages, boxes or tied-up on chains.

Willie Smits, Sean Whyte and Richard Zimmerman are the pioneers in orangutan protection and conservation.

If you would like to help raise awareness about the palm oil crisis and raise funds for orangutan centres, take a look at the ideas and suggestions below.We must work together to give the orangutan a voice!:- http://www.saynotopalmoil.com/how-to-help.php

More pictures: http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10150953263103819.438182.764913818&type=1

Suffering Species

The animals are not only losing their habitat, but the roads constructed for the plantation workers expose the forest to poachers and animal smugglers. 

Roads in a drastically deforested area close to Sentarum Lake National Park. The land has been cleared by PT KPC, a subsidiary of Sinar Mas Group, Indonesia’s largest palm oil producer Coordinates: N 000 05 22.83 – E 110 33 30.06. By Daniel Whittingstall

These roads allow the poachers and smugglers to access the forest and capture the exotic wildlife within. These animals are often sold on the illegal pet trade market, used in the entertainment business, slaughtered in order to make medicines, killed for their fur, skin or ivory, or, in the case of Sunbears; put in small cages and milked for their bile (fluid in liver).
 
Orangutans, along with many other endangered South-East Asian animal species, can now only be found living in fragmented pockets of remaining rainforest. This is not only due to habitat destruction, but also these sickening acts of cruelty and murder.

 Below are just a few of the many wildlife species under threat due to palm oil.

Link to the above:-http://www.saynotopalmoil.com/suffering-species.php

Please sign the petitions:

http://www.thepetitionsite.com/848/079/208/stop-importing-unsustainable-palm-oil-into-the-uk/

http://www.gopetition.com/petitions/americans-against-global-warming-from-palm-oil.html

http://www.gopetition.com/tag/palm%20oil

Here is a list of other website/blogs you can visit to learn more about palm oil and it’s affects on orangutans, and how you can help!

http://www.palmoilaction.org.au/

http://wwf.org.au/ourwork/land/land-clearing-and-palm-oil/

http://naturealert.blogspot.com/

http://www.orangutans-sos.org/news/205_consumers-should-help-pay-the-bill-for-greener-palm-oil

http://palmoilfree.planetark.org/news/display/205

http://freeofpalmoil.blogspot.com/

http://www.scribd.com/doc/17699654/Palm-Oil-Response-Spreadsheet

http://www.kalaweit.org/

Elephants really do grieve like us: They shed tears and even try to ‘bury’ their dead – a leading wildlife film-maker reveals how the animals are like us

The pictures of a baby elephant in Borneo, nudging and nuzzling the body of its dead mother in obvious distress and bewilderment, cannot fail to move us.

Allegations that up to ten pygmy elephants were poisoned, perhaps by local farmers, are upsetting — perhaps because elephant emotions seem so like our own, so heartbreakingly close to human sorrow and grief.

Any scientist knows how dangerous it is to project human feelings on to an animal, to force them into human moulds or ‘anthropomorphise’ them, but it’s equally dangerous to ignore a wealth of scientific data based on decades of observation in the wild.

Heart-rendering: An African elephant mother mourns her calf, a victim of the three consecutive years of drought in East Africa

We may never know exactly what goes on inside the mind of an elephant, but it would be arrogant of us to assume we are the only species capable of feeling loss and grief.

I have been filming animals in the wild for more than 20 years, and that has often meant being around elephants: they live across a huge range of habitats. But mass poaching has put them into terrible decline — around 40,000 elephants a year are killed by poachers and, according to some estimates, since the Sixties the population has been culled from 3.5 million to just 250,000.

I am certain that the behaviour I have witnessed so often stems from real emotion. Understanding it is the biggest challenge for a wildlife cameraman. We have to get inside the heads of the animals, see how they are reacting and predict what they will do next, or we won’t get the shots we need.

Perhaps the most dramatic and emotional sequence happened in our current BBC1 series, Africa, narrated by David Attenborough. We filmed an elephant mother’s desperate attempts to keep her calf alive during the worst drought in 50 years in Kenya.

These animals were not dying of thirst: they were starving. Some volcanic springs were still flowing, so the animals could get water; what they couldn’t get were nutrients.

By that time, the drought was well into its second year and mother and baby were trying to survive on dry twigs. There was no hay in Kenya, there was a sense of utter helplessness, and we felt the most important thing was to document what was happening.

Cameraman Mark Deeble had been following the family for days. He saw that the mother stayed with her baby and felt she was distressed, trying to lift up the dead body and move it with her feet, before standing over the prone calf for about an hour, seeming to come to terms with the situation.

Whether you were actually there or watching events unfold on the screen, it was impossible to keep your emotions separate from what you were seeing. The mother’s bereavement transmitted itself so strongly.

In a more benign environment, an elephant might mourn for longer. I have heard of animals staying beside the bodies of dead friends for three days and nights, refusing to move.

This mother didn’t do that, possibly because she had been exposed to a lot of death around her. Fifteen thousand head of game died in that reserve during the drought. More than 400 elephants perished, including 60 per cent of all the matriarchs — a herd’s female leader. It was a terrible time for that population, and I think death had become familiar to them. You could draw a parallel with humans in wartime. The mother had to move on for her own survival.

We couldn’t save her baby, but we felt it was essential to put its death in context: Africa is infamous for its droughts and famines, and yet we very rarely see how seriously that affects its wildlife.

Scientists have observed extraordinary displays of emotion from elephants. When one tame animal called Abu died at a safari outfit in Botswana, his keepers brought the other elephants to say ‘goodbye’. One female, Cathy, was seen crying from both eyes, tears streaming down her face.

That doesn’t mean elephants know what death is. They can’t anticipate death in the way we can or imagine it as an abstract concept. Their grief is different: it’s simply about loss.

Dr Kate Evans, of the Elephants For Africa research foundation, has told me that on several occasions she has watched grieving elephants exhibit almost a sense of puzzlement.

They pick up, hold and examine bones, balancing a jawbone on their tusks or putting it in their mouths, as if they are saying to their dead friend: ‘Is that you?’ Perhaps the discredited myth of the elephant’s graveyard, a secret place where the animals supposedly went to die, had its origins in the fact that elephants interact with their dead.

Dr Evans has observed mourning among wild elephants that she knew well. On one occasion, a young bull came across three skulls. He ignored the first two, but paid particular attention to the third skull, from an elephant he had been friendly with. In Kate’s words, he seemed to know who the skull belonged to

Another time, a matriarch collapsed and died in the bush. Over the next three weeks, several lone males visited her body and spent time by her side.

Back in the Forties, George Adamson (the naturalist who, with his wife Joy, was the inspiration for the film Born Free) recalled how he once had to shoot a bull elephant from a herd that kept breaking into the government gardens of northern Kenya.

Adamson gave the elephant’s meat to the local Turkana tribesmen and then dragged the rest of the carcass half a mile away. That night, other elephants found the body, took the shoulderblade and leg bone, and returned the bones to the exact spot where the elephant was killed.

According to Charlie Mayhew, of the Tusk Trust, elephants will ‘bury’ their dead, covering carcasses with branches and even taking the tusks to be placed at a different spot. We cannot guess the precise meaning of that, but it’s clear that elephants are large-brained and social animals that live in complex groups. They recognise each other and, of course, they have marvellous memories.

When one animal dies, they will each need to assess how their social group has changed and how to re-evaluate themselves within this new hierarchy. The whole dynamic changes, and they need to know where they fit in within the crowd.

Those are not the only emotions they display. If you look at an elephant calf, chasing cattle egrets through the long grass, it is playing — it exhibits joy. In another episode of the Africa series, we showed a young bull elephant in ‘must’ or on heat — he was throwing his weight around, clearly in a heightened emotional state. We called it a ‘sexual fury’.

Elephants in zoos have reportedly shown symptoms of depression. The first African elephant to be taken to London Zoo, in the 1860s, was called Jumbo, and he posed problems for his keepers, who tried to keep him happy and amused.

For humans, the most complex and important emotion is love, and we describe it in a multitude of ways. The powerful bond between a mother elephant and her calf is an easy one for us to understand. But unlike humans, elephants don’t seem to have any notion of romantic love. You don’t get courting elephants — when they mate, it can be a pretty brief encounter.

Their society is a very female-based hierarchy, and the loyalty that a herd shows to a matriarch is intensely strong. They will follow her wherever she goes: perhaps that is a manifestation of love of a different sort.

Emotion requires communication, and the vocalisations of elephants are incredibly sophisticated.

They operate on some sound frequencies we can hear — trumpeting and grumbling — and others that we can’t. Much of their long-distance communication occurs through vibrations that are inaudible to us.

Low-frequency (or infrasonic) sounds are transmitted constantly, a deep rumble somewhere between  15-30 Hertz. The normal human range of hearing is between 20Hz and 20,000Hz.

These low frequencies can be sensed through the elephants’ trunks and even their feet, like vibrations on the skin of a drum.

They can talk to other elephants 50 miles away through the ground, communicating in ways that we are only just beginning to understand. It is possible that each elephant can recognise up to 100 other individuals by their infrasonic ‘voice’.

When we’re working with elephants, we can never let down our guard. I have been with populations that were utterly relaxed around humans; they just looked at us as being another kind of primate. Once, in the Okavango Delta in Botswana, on foot, I was part of a three-man camera team when we were surrounded by a herd of elephants.

That felt pretty scary — we were miles from our camp and could do nothing but crouch low beside a termite mound and keep murmuring, making small movements to show the animals that we were still alive. These were elephants very much in their natural state; they had never been hunted, and they were simply curious. In turn, three mothers brought their babies to show us to them. It appeared to be for their education — as if the mums were saying: ‘Come here, kids, and look at this!’

The babies approached us to within about five or six metres, wiggling their trunks and looking in all directions, and then they would suddenly lock on to us. We could hear these rumblings between mother and calf, as if they were discussing us. This happened three times within about ten minutes, before the matriarch led the herd away. That really was a magical experience.

When we’re on foot, especially in the forests of western Africa, we often have to use their trails. The only pathways are those made by elephants, so there is always a chance of an encounter. If one is coming head on, our only option is to get off the path: we have to rely on our guides because they know much more about the habits of those particular elephants than we do. And they will probably hear them coming a lot sooner.

You might imagine you could see an elephant coming a mile off, but it’s amazing how easy it is for an elephant to disappear. Give them a few small bushes and they can vanish completely. They are incredibly stealthy for their size.

Sadly, the impact of poaching is changing their behaviour. Some populations are becoming more aggressive because of it. Though I can’t prove it, I would readily accept that the elephant who wanted to shake our cameraman out of a tree was an animal who might have been hunted. All the others in the herd seemed relaxed, but this one was grumpy.

Why was that? Who can say how an individual elephant will respond to the loss of a close family member to poachers? All this feels particularly poignant as we examine in the next and last episode of Africa the future of the continent’s wildlife, and ask what the next few years hold for elephants.

Apart from the poaching crisis, elephants are coming into increasing conflict with farmers and expanding human populations. The incident in Borneo highlights that it’s not just an African problem.  One thing is certain: there will be many more dead elephants to mourn in the coming months.

News Link: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2270977/Elephants-really-grieve-like-They-shed-tears-try-bury-dead–leading-wildlife-film-maker-reveals-animals-like-us.html#ixzz2JzKmOKP8
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Did Palm Oil Plantation Workers Poison 14 Pygmy Elephants Found Dead In Borneo?

• A total of ten of the creatures have been discovered in the Gunung Rara Forest Reserve, Borneo, over the past three weeks
• Conservation officials believe the endangered animals had been poisoned
• Estimated to be fewer than 1,500 Borneo pygmy elephants in existence

“Please note graphic images are at the end of this long post; viewer discretion advised. A Video is also at the end of this post!”

Palm oil plantation workers were today blamed for the deaths of 14 pygmy elephants on the remote island of Borneo.

Wildlife rangers believe that the creatures could have eaten toxic substances laid to keep away ‘pests’ from the highly lucrative crop.

The animals live on land in the Gunung Rara Forest Reserve which is very close to palm oil fields.

Thriving: The orphan pygmy elephant is being cared for at a wildlife reserve where it was taken after the death of its mother

A total of 14 pygmy elephants are now know to have died. Four adults were discovered yesterday in addition to ten bodies found earlier in the week.

Vets said that all the dead elephants had suffered severe bleeding and gastrointestinal ulcers, suggesting they had been poisoned.

Among the survivors is a three-month-old calf which was pictured pitifully trying to rouse his mother after she dropped down dead.

It is now being cared for at a wildlife park in Sabah where rangers have found it a home with other orphans.

Wildlife workers fear that more elephants could have been poisoned and are lying undiscovered in the remoter parts of Borneo.

Laurentius Ambu, Sabah’s director of wildlife, said: ‘We are very concerned that many more carcasses are going to turn up.

‘Because the elephants travel in herds they are going to be picking up the poisons together so we fear that there are still more dead that are going to be found.

‘Great loss’: A three-month-old elephant calf attempts to wake its mother; one of ten pygmy elephants found dead in Malaysia’s Sabah state

He said that rangers were scouring the island for areas where poison could have been laid.

‘My hunch is that there may be more (carcasses). I don’t think it’s an accident,’ he added, explaining that the area where the dead elephants were found is part of a 100,000-acre (40,469-hectare) piece of ‘commercial forest reserve’ land managed by state agency Sabah Foundation.

He said the area was slated to be used as a tree plantation for sustainable logging. So far, two palm oil plantations and a logging company operate in the area, he said.

Mr Ambu said far too many jungle areas in Sabah were being broken up by agricultural or logging activities, without corridors linking them to allow animals to pass through.

‘This shouldn’t be. The fragmentation of forests has disrupted the elephants’ traditional routes to look for food.

‘It is highly suspected that the poisoning is blatantly done or that it’s a well-planned programme.’

Attached: The baby elephant sticks close to the body of its mother, while a wildlife department official gives it a drink

Police are investigating the deaths and officials have declined to say whether there are any suspects.

Meanwhile, conservationists say they are deeply concerned about the effects the palm oil industry is having on the wildlife of Borneo.

A spokesman for the WWF said that the dead elephants were found in areas being converted for plantations, giving fresh urgency to activists’ warnings of rising conflict between man and wildlife as development accelerates.

‘The central forest landscape in Sabah needs to be protected totally from conversion,’ the group said in a statement.

‘Conversions result in fragmentation of the forests, which in turn results in loss of natural habitat for elephant herds, thus forcing them to find alternative food and space, putting humans and wildlife wildlife in direct conflict.’

‘Sad day’: A total of seven female and three male pygmy elephants have been found in the forest over the past three weeks

The first ten known deaths of the pygmy elephants were made public this week, capturing wide attention as only about 1,200 of the elephants exist worldwide.

Authorities released several photographs of the elephant carcasses, including a particularly poignant one of the three-month-old surviving calf trying to wake its dead mother.

Most of the pygmy elephants live in Sabah and grow to about 8 feet (245 centimetres) tall, a foot or two shorter than mainland Asian elephants.

Known for their babyish faces, large ears and long tails, Borneo pygmy elephants were found to be a distinct subspecies only in 2003, after DNA testing.

Sabah is one of the poorest states in Malaysia. Sabah Foundation was granted huge forest concessions, totalling about 14 percent of total land area in Sabah, by the state government to enable it to generate income to fund its aim of improving the lives of poor rural people.

The Sabah Foundation website said it had adopted sound forest management policies to ensure the areas are managed on a sustainable basis.

Tragic: The carcasses of the endangered animals were found in the forest over a period of three weeks

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2271230/Endangered-pygmy-elephants-killed-plantation-workers.html#ixzz2JhuUcjW4
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Pygmy Elephants Found Dead In Borneo

Published on 29 Jan 2013

Pygmy elephant calf desperately tries to wake up dead mother who was one of ten animals found poisoned 

A baby pygmy elephant tries in vain to rouse its mother, one of ten of the endangered creatures found dead in a Malaysian forest.

Experts believe the rare, baby-faced animals, whose bodies were found in the Gunung Rara Forest Reserve in Sabah state, Borneo, had been poisoned.
Wildlife officials rescued this three-month-old elephant calf, which was found glued to its dead mother’s side in the jungle.

The seven female and three male elephants, which were all from the same family group, have been found over the past three weeks.

Sabah’s environmental minister Masidi Manjun said the cause of death appeared to be poisoning, but it was not yet clear whether the animals had been deliberately killed.

There are believed to be fewer than 1,500 Borneo pygmy elephants in existence.
While some have been killed for their tusks in the area in recent years, there was no evidence to suggest the elephants had been poached.

Malaysia saves endangered pygmy elephant on Borneo

Malaysian wildlife authorities said Monday they had rescued a pygmy elephant calf on Borneo islandand expressed hope a planned sanctuary would provide protection for the endangered animals.

The male calf, which is less than a month old, was pulled out of a deep moat surrounding a palm oil plantation in remote Sabah state on Friday, said Sen Nathan, a senior official with the Sabah Wildlife Department.

It is the fifth calf rescued by wildlife officials since 2009. Three of those previously saved have died but a female has recovered and is now at a wildlife park.

There are fewer than 2,000 Borneo pygmy elephants left in the wild, according to authorities. A sub-species of the Asian elephant, the creatures have a rounded appearance and are smaller than mainland elephants.

The latest rescued calf, which weighed about 50 kilograms (110 pounds), was in a serious condition, Nathan told AFP.

“He suffered severe dehydration and cuts and abrasions, probably while trying to get out of the moat,” he said.

The elephant’s mother was probably forced to leave it behind after the pair fell into the moat, and the calf likely spent more than a day there before being spotted by plantation workers, he said.

Nathan said a planned elephant sanctuary on 1,200 hectares (3,000 acres) of land within the 26,000-hectare Kinabatangan wildlife sanctuary in Sabah would help protect the animals.

The sanctuary would be able to house up to 60 injured elephants, as well as those found when they were too young to be reintroduced into the wild.

A pygmy elephant calf on Borneo island, in Malaysia’s Sabah state (AFP, Malaysia Wildlife Authorities)

Authorities announced plans for the sanctuary earlier this month and want it open by the end of the year. “We really need this sanctuary,” Nathan said.

The sanctuary will be funded with 5.3 million ringgit ($1.7 million) from industry body the Malaysian Palm Oil Council and 1.5 million ringgit from NGO the Borneo Conservation Trust.

Wildlife activists warn that pygmy elephants are fast losing their natural habitat to deforestation and human encroachment on Borneo, a vast island shared by Malaysia, Indonesia and Brunei.

News Link:-http://sg.news.yahoo.com/malaysia-saves-endangered-pygmy-elephant-borneo-062043834.html

Save The Orangutan – Borneo Orangutan Survival

“This isn’t a new video but I wanted to show the dedicated work of one women, Lone Droescher-Nieslen from the Orang-utan Survival Foundation”. 

“It is Mothers Days on 18th March, why not give your mum a very special present, adopt one of these beautiful little fur balls, I’m sure she will thank you for it“

From flight attendant to orangutan mother – The journey begins Substitute mother to orangutans. That is probably the most fitting way to describe a woman who has become known around the world as “The Great
Dane”. Her name is Lone Dröscher-Nielsen. She has dedicated the last 17 years of her life to saving the orangutan from extinction. Founder and Manager of the Nyaru Menteng Sanctuary, she heads the rescue operations to save orangutans that would otherwise not have had a chance of survival; orphaned babies whose mothers have been killed, and adult orangutans that have lost their home to the destruction of the rainforest by Man. They stay at the centre, safe and cared for, until they can be re-released into the wild.

So moved by the traumas experienced by these creatures, she gave up her life in Denmark, and has been living in Borneo ever since. In November 1999, with the help of the Borneo Orangutan Survival Foundation (BOS) she opened her own rehabilitation and rescue centre for orangutans in Nyaru Menteng. For ten years, Lone has fought for the survival of the orangutans. It is an uphill battle, but Lone refuses to give up. She has made a promise to them and she will never stop fighting to save them.

Adopt an Orangutan & help Borneo Orangutan Survival save the species.
http://savetheorangutan.org.uk/adopt http://savetheorangutan.org/splash.html

You can help by adopting an orangutan and becoming part of the largest primate rescue operation in the world today. When adopting an orangutan your money will go to the care, medicine and eventual release of all the orangutans in our care. As an adoptive parent you will receive regular updates about your orangutan, follow their progress in forest school and get to know the character of one of these most special “people of the rainforest.” You will be able to follow their journey from a scared, traumatised orphan into a happy orangutan with the skills needed to survive in the wild. 

 

“This too is an old video but it it very informative. The dates of the video’s are irrelevant, BOS still needs your help for all the orphaned orangutans. This is a man-made disaster, we demolished their natural home & habitat; so it is up to us to ensure we provide them with a natural alternative!”

October 2006

By some estimates, Borneo’s vast forests are being cleared faster than the Amazon. Unless something is done now, Orang-utans could be extinct in 20 years.

The practice of bulldozing everything to make way for palm oil plantations has left Orang-utans without their customary habitat. “Palm oil is totally destructive. They’re cutting down every single tree”, complains Lone Droescher-Nieslen from the Orang-utan Survival Foundation. When the forests disappear, Orang-utans cling to any stump in the cleared land, unable to understand their homes are gone. It’s left to charities to rescue the apes before the plantation workers kill them. Lone hopes she can rehabilitate the Orang-utans back into the wild. But if the rate of de-forestation continues, there may soon be no forests to release them into.
Produced by ABC Australia
Distributed by Journeyman Pictures

“Give the gift of life on Mothers Day – Don’t give the usual boring flowers & chocolates – Adopt an orangutan, virtual gifts or a donation here:- http://www.orangutanprotectionfoundation.org/?page_id=700#

You can help BOS release the many Orangutans in its care waiting to return to the wild. Text ORANG to 70003 and donate £3 today.

Link to other post on Pony the orangutan used as prostitute for men! 

Orangutan Prostitute -Sign the Petition

Orangutan Prostitute

Meet Pony. She is an orangutan from a small village in Borneo, where they cut down the rain forest to render the palm oil that gets sold abroad and made into lip salve, ice cream, chocolates, and cheese crackers.

Vice: So tell us about Pony.

Michelle Desilets [Director of the Borneo Orangutan Survival Foundation]: Pony is an orangutan from a prostitute village in Borneo. We found her chained to a wall, lying on a mattress. She had been shaved all over her body.

I want to cry.

If a man walked near her, she would turn herself around, present herself, and start gyrating and going through the motions. She was being used as a sex slave. She was probably about six or seven years old when we rescued her, but she had been held captive by a madam for a long time. The madam refused to give up the animal because everyone loved Pony and she was a big part of their income. They also thought Pony was lucky, as she would pick winning lottery numbers.

Did the clients realize that they were in fact getting an orangutan?

Oh yeah, they would come in especially for it. You could choose a human if you preferred, but it was a novelty for many of the men to have sex with an orangutan. They shaved her every other day, which meant that her skin had all these pimples and was very irritated. The mosquitoes would get to her very badly and the bites would become septic and be very infected, as she would scratch them constantly. They would put rings and necklaces on her. She was absolutely hideous to look at.

How did you get her away from there?

It took us over a year to rescue her, because every time we went in with forest police and local officers we would be overpowered by the villagers, who simply would not give her up. They would threaten us with guns and knives with poison on them. In the end it took 35 policemen armed with AK-47s and other weaponry going in there and demanding that they hand over Pony. It was filmed by a local television crew and in the background of the film when we are unchaining Pony you can hear the madam crying hysterically, screaming, “They are taking my baby, you can’t do this!” There is no law enforcement in Indonesia so these people didn’t face any sentence or anything for what they had done.

“How sickening, I forgot I had this as a draft a long time ago, for the animals sake I have posted this to make people aware of what some humans are capable of. Pony was rescued & I just bloody hope that they keep an eye on the owner of Pony; God forbid they force another sentient animal into their sick society!!” Jules B.

via http://www.vice.com/read/yo1-v14n10 Orangutan Prostitute.

Sign petition here:-http://www.theperfectworld.com/petitions/item/35-pony-the-orangutan-prostitute