An endangered species himself, the 34-year-old Sumatran elephant patrolled the jungles of Bukit Barisan National Park on the island of Sumatra in western Indonesia on anti-poaching missions, and helped calm potentially unsafe wild elephants threatening to stampede.
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Its one-metre (three-foot) tusks had been hacked off, leaving just bloody stumps, and its legs still bore the chains put on it by his keepers to ensure it stayed in the camp.
Although Yongki’s notoriety among park rangers brings added emotion to this tragedy, it is an all-too-familiar scene in Indonesia, where 45 elephants were poached in 2014 alone. He was found with a blue tongue, and officials believe he was poisoned by poachers for his ivory. For the majority of his 35 years, Yongki trudged alongside other park rangers and became a member of the conservation response unit – the group responsible for conserving and protecting the natural habitat of the national park.
On the morning of September 18, one of the elephant keepers in the park found Yongki’s slumped carcass.
The head of the Indonesian elephant-keepers’ forum, Nazaruddin, said Yongki was well-liked by keepers.
The elephant was involved in patrols aimed at reducing tensions, with the tame elephants stopping wild elephants from rampaging through villages.
“This sickens me: Poachers killed an elephant who helped rangers protect and patrol the forest!”
Though no arrests have been made in Yongki’s death yet, a social media firestorm – beginning with the hashtag #RIPYongki, along with gruesome pictures of Yongki’s body – has the internet world raging and demanding someone be held responsible for the tame elephant’s death.
“Humans are (far more) savage than the wild itself, sometimes”, posted one user named Santi Sundari.
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But in some cases, angry local residents and farmers have killed wild elephants foraging for food on their plantations.
