300 elephants killed in national park

300 elephants killed in national park

JAKARTA: Three hundred elephants have been killed since 1993 in
the South Bukit Barisan National Park in Lampung, and three tons
of their tusks have been sold, according to a report released on
Thursday that portrays uncontrolled poaching in the province.

The crime unit of the Wildlife Conservation Society in
Indonesia suspects that hundreds of tigers and dozens of rhinos
in the national park have also been poached since 1993.

"This (poaching) is the work of organized criminals," said
Harry Alexander of the society.

He said that last month alone, a joint operation between the
police and the society's rhino protection unit led to the arrest
of three groups of hunters specializing in elephants, tigers and
rhinos. They were arrested in the regencies of Tanggamus and West
Lampung.

The unit's supervisor, Arif Rubianto, said that prices for the
poached creatures had increased over the last few years,
signaling that the supply of the endangered animals was dropping.
--JP