August 8, 2007
KUALA LUMPUR, 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.
Very little was known about pygmy elephants until a chance DNA analysis in 2003 revealed them to be a distinct subspecies of Asian elephants, which triggered a new effort to conserve them.
In June 2005, the WWF set in motion a landmark project to track pygmy elephants in the rain forests of Sabah by placing collars fitted with transmitters around the necks of five elephants, known to be leaders of their herds.
The collars beamed their locations via satellite to a WWF-Malaysia computer as often as once a day in the first study of its kind, providing valuable information about the elephants' grazing habits and movement patterns.
To read the full story click on the blog title
No comments:
Post a Comment