Pygmy Elephants Losing Habitat

Pygmy elephants are losing their habitat in Malaysia.

Malaysia—Satellite tracking of pygmy elephants has found that the endangered animals—unique to Borneo island—are under threat due to logging and commercial plantations encroaching on their habitat, conservationists said Thursday.

A World Wildlife Fund study, based on two years of satellite tracking, found that pygmy elephants thrive best in forests on flat lowlands and in river valleys—the same terrain preferred by loggers and oil palm plantations.

About 40 percent of forest in the Malaysian state of Sabah, where most pygmy elephants live, has been lost to logging, conversion for plantations and human settlement over the last four decades, WWF said.