A male pygmy elephant was found dead from a gunshot wound in eastern Malaysia, a state wildlife official said today.

The body of the elephant, an endangered species, was discovered in a palm oil plantation in Tawau town in the state of Sabah, about 1,700 kilometres east of Kuala Lumpur, according to state wildlife chief Laurentius Ambu.

He said the elephant, estimated between 18 and 25 years old, had a gunshot wound in the abdomen and suffered for about four days before it died.

Laurentius said the Wildlife Department has sought the help of police and ballistic experts to investigate the crime.

Elephants have increasingly strayed into plantations and damaged oil palms as humans encroach into forests.

Conservationists estimated that there are only about 1,200 pygmy elephants roaming in the remaining forests of Borneo island, which includes the states of Sabah, Sarawak, the tiny oil-rich state of Brunei and Indonesia’s province of Kalimantan.

- dpa