Heartbreak over baby elephant's 'shocking' death

A baby elephant on Indonesia's Sumatra island died yesterday after her trunk was caught in a poaching trap.

"We tried our best,'' said Agus Arianto of Aceh province's conservation agency after experts on Monday amputated half of the one-year-old female's trunk.

"The trunk was getting rotten and no longer functioning.''

The elephant was among the island's less than 700 wild Sumatran elephants. She was found very weak with a snare embedded in her almost-severed trunk on Sunday in Aceh Jaya district.

"Her death was shocking," said Rika Marwati, a veterinarian at an elephant facility near Banda Aceh. "She looked fine after the amputation but suddenly fell ill from stress and infection late on Monday.''

The number of Sumatran elephants that died after being snared or poisoned reached 25 in the past nine years in East Aceh district alone, Arianto said, and in July a headless elephant was found at a palm plantation.

The International Union for Conservation of Nature changed the status of the Sumatran elephant from endangered to critically endangered in 2012 after a big drop in the population.