Central Aceh, Indonesia – A Sumatran elephant found dead in Indonesia's Central Aceh district in late February was the latest case of electrocution to kill one of Indonesia's remaining critically endangered elephants, officials in the semiautonomous region of Aceh province say.
In a separate incident a day later, a farmer died after encountering an elephant herd near his family's corn field. According to a senior conservation official in Aceh, Cyclone Senyar, which killed more than 1,000 people in late November, may have disrupted elephant movement patterns and increased the risk of such encounters.
In a further incident, police in Sumatra's Riau province on Mar. 3 announced they would charge 15 people after uncovering an alleged poaching ring linked to the shooting of an elephant on Feb. 2. The elephant was found on a palm oil concession operated by PT Riau Andalan Pulp & Paper, a subsidiary of Asia Pacific Resources International Holdings Ltd, known as the APRIL Group.
"We suspected that the animal was looking for food," said Anwar, a resident of Karang Ampar village in Ketol subdistrict after the body of the elephant was found there.
The body of the female Sumatran elephant (Elephas maximus sumatranus), aged around 20 years old, was discovered on the outskirts of Karang Ampar on Feb. 20.
"Its trunk was entangled in a wire that had been put up around the land," Anwar said, referring to an electrified fence. He added that encounters with elephants had increased in frequency.
In much of Sumatra, farming communities and plantations are increasingly using electric fences to keep herds away from human settlements and growing areas.
The most-recent assessment by the Indonesian Elephant Conservation Forum (FKGI), which Mongabay obtained in 2022, estimated a remaining wild population of 924-1,359 Sumatran elephants. However, that fieldwork was based on field surveys conducted two decades ago.
The global wildlife watchdog, the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), elevated the Sumatran elephant to the critically endangered status in 2011. The surviving population is estimated to have fallen by 80% since the Second World War, due mainly to habitat loss.
Fieldworkers with the state conservation agency traveled to the scene on receiving the latest report, said Ujang Wisnu Barata, who is the head of the state conservation agency (BKSDA) in Aceh, the westernmost province of Sumatra island.
"Based on the preliminary investigation, the elephant is suspected to have died from electrocution from a wire installed in a resident's farming area," Ujang said.
"When found, its trunk was also entangled in the wire," Ujang added, echoing the testimony from Karang Ampar village's Anwar.
Anwar said the roots of the crisis grew after the culmination of a 30-year civil war between the separatist Free Aceh Movement (GAM in Indonesian) and the state of Indonesia.
After the Helsinki Memorandum peace agreement brought the war to an end, more people began clearing forested land in Aceh's Bireuen district, squeezing the elephants' habitat and leading to increased conflict between elephants and human settlements.
Land use change fuels human-elephant encounters across the remaining elephant habitats in Sumatra, from Aceh to provinces further south like Jambi, where Mongabay reported in 2024 on the rise of electric fencing as a means of containing herds from plantations.
While low-output electric fences are attributed with having helped curb elephant conflict, as in Kenya, some fences have been dangerously connected to mains power.
In 2024, Mongabay reported that Sri Lanka's Wildlife Department believed that around 300 elephants had died by electrocution since 2018.
In February that year, Mongabay Indonesia reported on the death of an elephant entangled by an electric fence in Aki Neungoh village, located in Aceh's Pidie Jaya district around 64 kilometers (40 miles) from Karang Ampar village.
Further east of Aceh, in Riau province, the Ministry of Forestry has framed a new policy to relocate people living inside the notoriously deforested Tesso Nilo National Park around efforts to save Domang, an elephant calf living within the national park.
"Human-elephant conflict in Karang Ampar didn't use to be as serious as it is now," Anwar said. "However, after the expansion of oil palm plantations in Bireuen district as well as numerous other illegal activities in the forest, the conflict has escalated."
Local people said this herd of elephants is, in effect, trapped in the forests in Bener Meriah district, and that the nomadic elephants cannot access forests in neighboring Bireuen district, owing to land-use change for palm oil.
Risks to life
One day after the female elephant was found dead in Karang Ampar village, authorities recovered the body of a farmer, Mashar, trampled by an elephant around 10 km (6 mi) away in Pantan Lah village, located in Bener Meriah district.
Mashar, who was 53, had been sleeping overnight along with his wife and child in a corn field – a local custom in which farmers guard fields from intruders and pests during the planting season.
Mashar had followed elephant tracks at dawn on Feb. 21, explained Sulaiman, another local resident.
"Moments later, the victim's wife heard the roar of an elephant," Sulaiman said. "She called her son to check on him – he found his father on the ground with wounds from being trampled on his chest and jaw."
The local police chief, quoted by the national newspaper Kompas, said Mashar had tried to chase away what he believed was a lone elephant, but encountered a herd and was killed.
The family rushed Mashar to a hospital, but he succumbed to his injuries.
Teuku Irmansyah, a section head at the Aceh conservation agency, said the incident was a reminder that people should avoid initiating contact with wild animals, which may react on instincts.
"If you find elephant tracks or elephants present near residential areas, report it immediately to officers so they can be handled in line with procedures for safety," Teuku said. "We ask the public to stay vigilant to prevent a repeat of similar incidents."
Separately, Teuku said a new factor may be driving human-elephant conflict: the catastrophic landfall of Cyclone Senyar in November last year, which killed more than 1,000 people across the provinces of Aceh, North Sumatra and West Sumatra – all home to Sumatran elephants.
"There have been changes in wildlife routes – particularly elephants' – due to the flash floods and landslides that occurred in November 2025," Teuku said. "This has altered their movement patterns."
Conservation agency staff buried the body of the female elephant at the scene. The government called on communities to not use electrified fencing as a means of fortifying agricultural land from wild animals.
"There are safer and more-compliant methods for mitigating human-animal conflict," Aceh conservation agency lead Ujang said.