Was Palm Oil to Blame for the Poisoning of 14 Pygmy Elephants?

When wildlife officials in Borneo first encountered a three-month-old pygmy elephant on January 25, he was surrounded by death. Four members of his herd lay on the ground around him, their bodies cold and bloody. The baby was nudging his dead mother with his trunk, trying to get her to rise and feed him.Tragically, the four dead elephants were not the first, nor were they the last. Six bodies had already been found that month, rotting carcasses away in the Gunung Rara Forest Reserve in northeastern Borneo. Four more were found in the days to come. Initial investigations revealed that the dead elephants were all suffering from severe bleeding and gastrointestinal ulcers, most likely caused by poisoning. [More]