The world's smallest elephant is sliding towards extinction

20 hours ago

fromHelen Briggs,@hbriggs,BBC Environment Correspondent

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The world's smallest elephant is at risk of extinction as numbers drop to just 1,000 in the wild, but there is hope it can be saved.

Conservation body IUCN, which compiles the 'red list' of threatened species, says the Bornean elephant has lost most of its habitat to deforestation.

The baby elephant, which stands three feet smaller than its larger Asian cousins, is found only on the island of Borneo.

It is known for its gentle, playful nature.

Cheryl Cheah/WWF-Malaysia

There is hope that the elephant can be saved through conservation work, said Benoit Goossens, a wildlife biologist at Cardiff University and director of the Danau Girang Field Center in Sabah.

Redlisting can help raise awareness of an endangered animal's plight and increase support, he said.

The message of hope is that there are many organizations in Sabah, including the government, who are working hard to conserve the elephant.

Read more about endangered species

Borneo elephants have lived on the island for hundreds or thousands of years, separated from mainland elephants and evolving into a separate population.

Their main threat is massive deforestation which destroys their habitat and brings them into conflict with humans.

Only about 1,000 individuals now remain in the wild, mostly found in Sabah in Malaysian Borneo.

Professor Adrian Lister of London's Natural History Museum said the elephant is unique in many ways, from its small face to its small size.

“We hope that by putting Borneo elephants on the Red List, it will boost conservation efforts to protect their habitat because the authorities will now see that the eyes of the world are on this species,” he told the BBC. News.

Baby Borneo elephant

The palm oil industry has flourished in Malaysia and Indonesia, leading to massive deforestation, loss of wildlife and human-wildlife conflict.

Elephants are forced into human areas in search of food, where they can damage crops and face retribution killings.

Other risks include poaching for ivory and accidental poisoning from agricultural chemicals, the IUCN said.

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The Asian elephant is the largest land mammal on the Asian continent, inhabiting 13 countries spanning South and Southeast Asia.

Elephants in Borneo have been recognized on the IUCN Red List for the first time as a distinct subspecies of the Asian elephant.

Mike Hoffmann, Head of Wildlife Recovery at ZSL, said: Habitat loss, combined with human-wildlife conflict, continues to pose a threat to both wildlife and the communities that live around them, and this is highlighted by the assessment of Asian Borneo elephants as endangered. .

The latest update of the extinction red list highlights other shocking declines across the globe.

The IUCN has now assessed more than 163,000 species, of which 45,000 are threatened with extinction.

Miguel A. Carretero

In its latest update, the IUCN highlighted the plight of reptiles on Spain's Gran Canaria and Ibiza islands, which are declining due to attack by introduced non-native snakes.

The Gran Canaria giant lizard is now critically endangered and the Gran Canaria skink is endangered after falling prey to the California king snake, which arrived on the island in 1998.

Pablo C. Guerrero

In Chile, illegal trade threatens ornamental cacti.

The fad for copiapoa cacti in Europe and Asia has led to an increase in illegal trade, facilitated by social media, the IUCN said.

Climate change further threatens plants, which are slow to adapt their range in the face of rising temperatures.

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