“Mom, wake up!”

Posted on April 12, 2013

These are the words from a three-months old elephant calf trying to wake up his dead mother.  The mother elephant was found dead at the Gunung Rara Forest Reserve in Sabah.

Suspected being poisoned under mysterious circumstances, a total number of ten endangered Borneo pygmy elephants were found dead in the forest.

“We highly suspected that it might be some form of acute poisoning from something that they have eaten but we are still waiting for the laboratory results of the chemical analysis from samples taken from the dead elephants to confirm the diagnosis” said the authority.

“It looks like these animals are from the same family group, as the carnage took place on the same time and space.  It was a very sad sight to see all those dead elephants, especially one of the dead females who had a very young 3-month old calf.  The calf was trying to wake the dead mother up.” Said Dr Sen Nathan, Senior Veterinarian for the Sabah Wildlife Department.  The baby calf was very distressed and had to be rescued.  It is now being hand-raised by wildlife rangers at Lok Kawi Wildlife Park.

“Mom, wake up!”  I heard the voice wandering in the woods….