Govt serious in tackling elephant deaths

KOTA KINABALU: The State Government is serious about tackling the issue of intermittent elephant deaths to protect the elephant population and prevent their extinction.

This is in view of the fact that a total of 116 elephant deaths were recorded between October 2010 and September this year.

Of the figure, 30 elephants have died this year alone. The latest, a female aged between 12 and 15 years, died at the Gunung Rara Forest Reserve (Tawau) on October 18.

According to Dr Roza, a veterinarian with the Sabah Wildlife Department (SWD) who conducted the post-mortem, the elephant died due to a fight with other elephants.

In this regard, a joint meeting was convened between the Ministry of Tourism, Culture and Environment, and Ministry of Agriculture and Food Industry last week.

Ministers Datuk Christina Liew and Datuk Junz Wong concurred that given the loss of habitat, the 2,000-odd elephants need a “home” so that they will not encroach into oil palm plantations and risk getting snared or shot to death.

Currently, they are concentrated in three areas – Lower Kinabatangan Managed Elephant Range (MER), Tabin MER and Central Sabah MER in the Danum area. The forests in these elephant habitat are a mix of primary and secondary forests. Elephants eat grasses, roots, fruit and bark. They use their tusks to pull the bark from trees and dig roots out of the ground. An adult elephant can eat 300 pounds (136kg) of food in a day, and drink up to 150-200 litres of water per day.

“Bornean pygmy elephants are a ‘prestige’ breed as they are peculiar to Borneo. We are intensifying our efforts to protect the elephants and prevent their extinction. We have discussed the pressing need to
grow sufficient food for the elephants in their habitat. For a start, we will consider planting vegetation (grasses and shrubs) in the three areas individually before connecting the areas at a later stage of development.

“The aim is to create a sustainable food chain within the three Managed Elephant Ranges, a new corridor of life for the elephants. Such move will avert crop damage in the oil palm plantations and smallholdings.

“In the meantime, we need the cooperation of plantation owners and workers in not causing any harm to the animals but to inform the
relevant authorities (Sabah Wildlife Department) in the event of any
encroachment,” the ministers said in a joint ministerial statement.

Expressing the government’s determination to resolve the human-elephant conflict, Liew, who is also a Deputy Chief Minister,
and Wong stressed that political will is indispensable in this respect.

“A special task force will be set up, comprising officials from the ministries and relevant agencies,” they said.

The SWD has been entrusted with the task of preparing a paper on the proposed Resolution of the Human-Elephant Conflict in Sabah for submission to the State Cabinet. Assistant Director (Bornean Elephants Conservation Unit) Dr Sen Nathan has been asked to prepare the paper.

The Deputy Chief Minister said the joint meeting was in response to the call by Chief Minister Datuk Seri Shafie Apdal to the two ministries to collectively address the outstanding problem. It was also attended by Permanent Secretaries Datuk Datu Rosmadi Datu Sulai (Ministry of Tourism, Culture and Environment) and Dr Mariana Tinggal (Ministry of Agriculture and Food Industry), Director of Agriculture, Datuk Idrus Shapie, and Director of Sabah Wildlife Department (SWD), Augustine Tuuga, among other senior officials.

It was unanimously agreed that the Sabah Forestry Department be enlisted in the Elephant Protection Cause. Its director will be
invited to attend the next meeting.

Breakdown of the total number of elephant deaths is as follows: 2010
(2), 2011 (6), 2012 (5), 2013 (23), 2014 (6), 2015 (15), 2016 (20),
2017 (9) and 2018 (30).

Number of elephant deaths by district is as follows: Died in captivity (2), Keningau (1), Tawau/Kalabakan (35), Lahad Datu (30),
Kinabatangan (31) and Sandakan/Telupid (17).

Answering Liew’s persistent question on the cause of death of the two elephants in captivity at the Lok Kawi Wildlife Park (LWP), Dr Sen said Yapid, a young male adult aged 12 years, seemed to have a problem of congenital disease, resulting in low absorption from the total nutriments consumed on its diet.

“Honestly speaking, Yapid was an elephant that would have needed special dietary and husbandry care.

Which means its care and dietary management should have been given higher priority and care. It is very evident that the general husbandry and veterinary care in LWP has deteriorated to a point where Yapid was not getting this special care. As a result, Yapid would have suffered from chronic malnutrition/starvation and thus eventually death,” he explained.

As for the baby elephant, a two-year-old male, Dr Sen said it died of chronic emaciation (unnatural thinness from loss of flesh due to lack of food).

“Rest assured, changes have been made at the LWP,” he added.

The meeting also discussed the possibility of getting agencies under the Ministry of Agriculture and Food Industry to “adopt” one or two elephants in the interest of their well-being.

Liew suggested that the previous plan of “loaning” an elephant to the Rasa Ria Reserve in Tuaran, be re-visited if possible.

At this juncture, Rosmadi conceded that with the presence of 15 elephants, there is congestion at the LWP.

“Ideally, by international convention, the zoo should have only four to five elephants. So the rest should be in the wild but then there is not enough food,” he said while emphasising the need to relocate 10 elephants to other areas.

Meanwhile, the minister questioned Tuuga over the five-month delay in the completion of renovation works at the LWP. It was supposed to have been completed by the end of September.

Rosmadi said the works will be completed by the end of October.

Before the meeting came to a close, a concerned Idrus brought the
issue of smuggling of plants to the minister’s attention.

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Sabah sets up joint task force to protect elephant population

KOTA KINABALU: A joint task force comprising agencies from two state ministries will be formed to address the alarming rate of elephant deaths in Sabah.

In a joint statement today, Deputy Chief Minister Christina Liew and Agriculture and Food Industry Minister Junz Wong said the government was determined to resolve the human-elephant conflict.

Measures were needed to protect the elephant population and prevent their extinction, they said.

“A special task force will be set up, comprising officials from the ministries and relevant agencies,” they said, adding that the Sabah Wildlife Department (SWD) had been tasked with preparing a paper on the proposed solution to the human-elephant conflict in Sabah.

This paper, to be prepared by SWD assistant director Dr Sen Nathan, would be submitted to the state Cabinet for consideration.

Liew said the joint meeting was in response to the call by Chief Minister Shafie Apdal to the two ministries to collectively address the problem.

A total of 116 elephants have died between October 2010 and September this year. In that period, 2018 recorded the highest number of deaths with 30 cases detected so far.

The deaths are due to snare traps, lack of food and diseases, among others.

In the latest case, a female elephant, aged between 12 and 15 years old, died at the Gunung Rara Forest Reserve in Tawau on Oct 18. The SWD said the elephant died from injuries sustained in a fight with other elephants.

Most of the deaths were recorded in the east coast districts, namely Tawau/Kalabakan, Lahad Datu, Kinabatangan and Sandakan/Telupid.

Liew and Wong said that given the loss of their natural habitat, the 2,000-odd elephants needed a home so that they would not encroach into oil-palm plantations and risk getting snared or shot to death.

Currently, the elephants are concentrated in the Lower Kinabatangan Managed Elephant Range (MER), Tabin MER and Central Sabah MER in the Danum area.

Liew and Wong also urged plantation owners and workers not to harm the animals that have encroached onto their land.

Instead, they should inform the authorities such as the SWD so that appropriate action could be taken.

Meanwhile, the tourism, culture and environment ministry’s permanent secretary Datu Rosmadi Sulai said the presence of 15 elephants at the Lok Kawi Wildlife Park near here was not ideal.

“Ideally, by international convention, the zoo should have only four to five elephants. So the rest should be in the wild but then there is not enough food,” he said, emphasising the need to relocate 10 elephants to other areas.

When asked by Liew the reason for the five-month delay to complete the renovation work at the wildlife park, Rosmadi said the work would be done by the end of this month.

An NGO, Friends of the Orangutans Malaysia (Foto), had called on Liew last June to address the deplorable conditions endured by the animals at the wildlife park, located about 30 minutes drive from here.

Its director Upreshpal Singh said the organisation received several photos showing the elephants at the park were kept in chains while cages for sun bears and pythons were littered with faeces on the floor.

The NGO also claimed the tigers in the park were kept in tiny enclosures.

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Elephant killed in fight with herd

KOTA KINABALU: Another elephant has been found dead in the Gunung Rara Forest Reserve in Tawau.

In a statement yesterday, Sabah Wildlife Department (SWD) public relations officer Siti Nur’ain Ampuan Acheh said that there is a possibility that the elephant was killed in a fight with an elephant herd.

Its carcass was discovered by an officer of Rakyat Berjaya Sdn Bhd and SWD was informed thereafter, said Siti.

“The next day, a team comprising of an investigating officer, a veterinarian officer and staff from the Sabah Wildlife Department went to the site to investigate and conduct a post-mortem,” she said.

She added that based on the physical condition of the elephant, they believed that it had been dead for more than five days.

“It is a female estimated to be about 12 to 15 year of age with a height of about six feet high,” she said.

She also said that a physical examination of the carcass found no bullet wounds or injuries. Metal detectors were also used, and no metal objects were detected on the body.

However, post-mortem examination found cracks on the temporal part of the elephant’s skull, she said.

The left jugal bone was also disjointed from the main skull; while the frontal and nasal bone were found to have deepened cracks suggesting possible head-on trauma, she said.

“The severe head trauma might have caused neurological damage and severe bleeding in the head which led to the elephant’s death.

There is a high possibility that a fight within the elephant herd was the cause of the death.

Workers working in the area reported seeing about 40 elephants in the surrounding area prior to the discovery of the carcass,” she said.

SWD director Augustine Tuuga, when contacted on the possibility of translocating all the elephants to the lost world in Lahad Datu to stop more elephants from dying, answered that elephant fights do occur and the elephants were already at their natural habitat.

“Where else to move them?” he asked.

He also said that even if the elephants were to be translocated, they would find their way back to their place of origin.

He confirmed that this was the 27th elephant found dead this year.

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