The body of a wild elephant was found with one of its ears cut and two-thirds of its skin stripped off at the tip of southern Myanmar on October 31.
A team of police, forest department officials, a veterinarian and a community leader located the carcass in Kawthoung district’s Bokpyin township, Tanintharyi region, after receiving a report from a local resident.
The news comes one week after the bodies of two wild elephants were found killed and skinned in Ayeyarwady region.
The elephant, which was discovered near a brook in Wardin village, measured 10 feet in height, 11 feet in length, had a six-foot trunk and a three-food tail, reported authorities.
Local police had lodged a case under a biodiversity and conservation law and are investigating the incident, according to state media.
Only some Asiatic males have tusks, making this sex the original target for poachers in Myanmar.
However, now females and young elephants are also being hunted for their hides, which are used for cosmetics, traditional medicine, and souvenirs.
Much of this ends up for sale in the notorious illegal wildlife market of Mong-la on the Myanmar-China border.
Though Myanmar has a large share of Asia’s Asiatic elephants, the number of wild elephants in the country has dropped about 80 percent to roughly 2,000 in the last 80 years.
