Yongki, an endangered Sumatran elephant, was found dead Friday by park rangers lying in a pool of his own blood, with a blue tongue and gory stumps where his three-foot tusks used to be.
The evidence all pointed to one conclusion: Yongki, the beloved elephant from Sumatra's Bukit Barisan Selatan national park was poisoned so poachers could get his ivory tusks, reported the Washington Post.
The latest incident in an international debate over poaching.
Yongki was well known by mahouts, or elephant riders, in the area due to his tame disposition. The 34-year-old elephant worked in conjunction with park rangers to protect endangered elephant habitats. In addition, he often patrolled the jungles of the national park on anti-poaching missions, keeping a lookout for illegal loggers, and helped calm wild elephants who might rampage through villages, according to Raw Story.
However, being an endangered elephant himself, Yongki became the victim of the practice he had once tried to stop.
Upon learning of the incident, social media exploded with the story trending under the hashtag #RIPYongki, according to CNN.
i wanna find the person that poisoned the endangered elephant Yongki and push them into a volcano #RIPYongki
— ta keo (@hjpotel) September 22, 2015
Killing an endangered species should not be tolerated! #RIPYongki and all of the others that go unnoticed.
— STA Today (@StaToday) September 22, 2015
I am ashamed to be human #RIPYongki pic.twitter.com/KUr5H6odNg — Barbara (@bcovili) September 22, 2015
The incident is currently under investigation, but park rangers note there is no trace of who committed the crime.
This incident comes two months after Cecil the Lion was killed by American recreational big-game hunter Walter Palmer in Zimbabwe's Hwange National Park.
