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| WWF: young orphan |
The Sumatran elephant
(Elephas maximus sumatrensis) is getting closer to extinction because of habitat on the Indonesian island loss to agricultural development. Nearly have the elephant's population has been lost and 70% of its habitat in one generation. IUCN has reclassified the subspecies from endangered to critically endangered on the Red List. Only 2400 to 2800 still survive in the wild, and at the current rate of decline could be extinct in 30 years. Outside of Sri Lanka and India, Sumatra is home to the most significant populations of Asian elephants left on the planet. Sumatra has experienced the fastest deforestation rate in the elephant's range, loosing more than two-thirds of lowland forest in the past twenty-five years. In Riau Province where palm oil plantations and pulp mills have permanently altered the landscape, elephants have declined by a staggering 80%. Six of its nine herds are gone. In Lampung Province, twelve herds counted in the 1980s have been reduced to three and only two are considered to be biologically viable. Half of Sumatra was covered in forest as late as the mid 1980s with 44 elephant populations spread throughout. The Asian elephant joins the list of other critically endangered Indonesian species--orangutan, rhinoceros and tiger--all suffering from deforestation. WWF is recommending that all forest development be prohibited until an assessment of remaining habitat suitable for elephants is made and a conservation plan is in place. Without action to save the elephant it is doomed to extinction in the wild.
