A baby elephant had to have half of her trunk amputated after being snared by sick poachers.
The one-year-old is one of the last of 700 wild Sumatran elephants on Indonesia's Sumatra island but was caught in a trap laid by poachers, the Mail Online reported.
Tragically the young elephant's herd left her behind and she was described as very weak when discovdred by conservation workers on Sunday in Alue Meuraksa, a village in the Aceh Jaya district which is forested.
Agus Arianto, who is the head of Aceh province's conservation agency, said they were forced to amputate half of her nearly-severed trunk at the Elephant Training Centre in Aceh Besar, Indonesia, to save her life.
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Mr Arianto said in a statement: "This obviously was intended to poach endangered animals to earn money.
"We will cooperate with law enforcement agencies in an investigation."
He added that the elephant calf was abandoned by her herd because of her deteriorating condition after she was entrapped by cruel poachers.
It is feared that the Covid pandemic had led to an increase in poaching in Sumatra, with villagers resorting to the cruel practice for money reasons.
In July, an elephant was found without a head at a palm plantation in East Aceh. A suspected poacher and four people who were accused of buying ivory were arrested.
Mr Arianto said the numbers of Sumatran elephants who have been snared and poisoned in the last nine years in just the East Aceh district has reached 25.
Sumatran elephants were raised from endangered to critically endangered by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) on its 2012 Red List.
This was mostly because of a significant drop in the population. Sumatran elephants are a subspecies of the Asian elephant, one of two species of in the world.
