Elephant bull captured in Ulu Muanad Beluran

KOTA KINABALU: An elephant bull has been captured and will be transferred out from Kg Ulu Muanad, Beluran, to a distant forest reserve.

According to Sabah Wildlife Department’s spokesperson, Siti Nur’ain Amp Acheh, the elephant bull was captured after two weeks of tracking its movement.

She said that there are still three elephants remaining in the area and that SWD hopes to capture and translocate them as soon as possible out of the area.

She explained that human-elephant conflict in Ulu Muanad has been an issue since November, 2015.

The damages caused by the elephants at the area were estimated to be nearly RM200,000 per annum.

The Sandakan Wildlife Office has been working closely with the community at Ulu Muanad, The Forest Trust (NGO) and IJM Plantation in Ulu Muanad since 18 November, 2015 to address the human-elephant conflict there.

The Forest Trust and IJM Plantation has formed a team comprising of youths from Kg Ulu Muanad to assist the department to mitigate the conflict.

Training and workshops have been conducted to prepare the team for the task.

The full cooperation from the team and the fund provided by the Forest Trust and IJM Plantation as well as the local community in Kg Ulu Muanad have helped eased the human-elephant conflict there and SWD is grateful for their support.

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Bull elephant captured, waiting to be translocated to forest reserve

BELURAN: A bull elephant was successfully captured at Kampung Ulu Muanad here by wildlife rangers yesterday after two weeks of tracking, and is now waiting to be translocated to a forest reserve.

There were still three other elephants remaining in the area which Sabah Wildlife Department (SWD) hoped to capture and translocate as soon as possible to reduce human-elephant conflict there, said SWD officer and spokesperson Siti Nurain Ampuan Acheh.

The Sandakan Wildlife Department office at present has been working closely with the community there, as well as non-governmental organisation (NGO) the Forest Trust and IJM Plantation management since November 2015, when the human-elephant conflict become an issue.

In a statement here, Siti Nurain said the conflict had resulted in damage of about RM200,000 a year.

“The Forest Trust and IJM Plantation then formed a team of youths from Kg Ulu Muanad to assist the Wildlife Department to mitigate the conflict.

“Training and workshop were conducted to prepare the team to assist in mitigating the conflict.

“The full cooperation of the whole team has eased the situation of human-elephant conflict in Ulu Muanad, and Sabah Wildlife Department wishes to thank those involved in the process and hoped for their continuous support,” she added.

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Another Pygmy Elephant is Shot Dead

The wild pygmy elephant was found dead near a small river at an oil palm plantation in Tawau. The pachyderm’s remains were riddled with three bullets. It doesn’t take a Sherlock Holmes to figure out what happened: the bull elephant had been killed either by plantation workers or local farmers in revenge for wading into crops or by poachers.

“The tusks are still there and we found gunshot wounds,” Augustine Tuuga, director of Sabah’s Wildlife Department, explained. “I believe it was done by poachers.”

This pygmy elephant is the seventh pachyderm that is known to have been killed in the past year, according to the World Wide Fund for Nature. In the past four months alone four pygmy elephants have been gunned down in Sabah. In August plantation workers discovered a female pygmy elephant suffering from several gunshot wounds at an oil palm plantation by the Malua Forest Reserve in Kinabatangan. She died of her injuries.

In early September, meanwhile, the remains of an elephant were found, without its tusks, at a plantation near Dumpas in Kalabakan. Soon thereafter, another pachyderm was discovered floating in the Kinabatangan river. It, too, had had its tusk sawn off by poachers.

The killings have alarmed conservationists and local wildlife officials. Pygmy elephants are increasingly beleaguered in Sabah. They are at risk of being killed by irate plantation workers for wading into crops; they are at risk of being poached for their ivory; and they are also at risk of being run over while crossing roads dissecting forests. Having lost much of their ancestral forests to oil palm cultivation and logging, these placid giants are now facing hardships and dangers across their range in Sabah.

“These animals belong to us all and are beneficial to us economically,” Masidi Manjun, Sabah’s minister of Culture, Tourism and Environment, has stressed, calling on locals to protect the state’s wild elephants.

Here’s hoping locals will heed such calls and set about saving the state’s pygmy elephants from any further harm.

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Malaysia: Two more pygmy elephants found dead without tusks

KOTA KINABALU: Another two Borneo pygmy elephants were found dead without their tusks in eastern Sabah.

One of the carcasses of the elephants was located in a plantation near the Dumpas area on Sept 10 while the other was found floating along the Kinabatangan river close to the Danau Girang Field Research Centre a few days ago.

Sources said it was difficult to pinpoint the area where the second bull was killed before the carcass was dumped into the river.

Sabah has been faced with the threat of wildlife poaching, especially of its endangered elephants which numbers around 2,000 in forests in eastern Sabah.

Six pygmy elephants, including the unique sabre tusk jumbo, have been reported killed over the last six months.

The Sabah Wildlife Department said they have no new leads or suspects in both the new cases.

Nevertheless, investigations are ongoing to identify the perpetrators.

The department's director, Augustine Tuuga, said the death of the elephant in Dumpas revealed no external injuries.

He said that they have taken blood samples to establish the cause of death while the second elephant might be a victim of poaching.

Wildlife officials were also probing the case of a green turtle found butchered on the shores of Pulau Bum Bum in Semporna which was highlighted in a Facebook posting on Wednesday.

At least nine dead turtles were seen in the photo uploaded on Facebook.

Tuuga said they were verifying the reports and carrying an investigation into the deaths.

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Bong Su is dead, broken by cramped and impoverished zoo conditions

Bong Su, Melbourne Zoo's beloved bull elephant, is dead. His death is a tragedy: zoo veterinarians euthanised him after an assessment that the pain he felt from "arthritis" could not be relieved. While this may be the case, Bong Su's pain was not natural. It was due to the conditions in which he was kept for many years at Melbourne Zoo. In reality, Bong Su should have been in his prime.

Captured from the wild in Malaysia, Bong Su and a female elephant, Mek Kapah, were shipped to Melbourne in 1977-78. They were young calves, no more than five years old.

For many years, Bong Su and Mek Kapah lived alone in what the zoo now calls its "heritage elephant exhibit", an old-fashioned, moated enclosure. During their time in the exhibit, both elephants developed severe behavioural problems involving repetitive "stereotypic" actions that are now understood to help relieve chronic stress. Mek Kapah swayed in one spot for years, actually wearing away the concrete under her front feet. Bong Su walked in small circles for hours at a time, putting particular strain on his front feet; video evidence showed Bong Su walked up to 15 kilometres a night in a tight circle, in his own waste, inside his barn. The constant torsion on his front feet resulted in chronic infections.

Confined in separate small barn-stalls for 16 hours out of 24 for many years, both elephants led impoverished lives. In the late 1990s, new expertise was brought in and a radical new approach was taken to relieve the stereotypic behaviour. The elephants were no longer confined on concrete floors at night. A weight-loss program was introduced for Mek Kapah. Exercise and training regimes were implemented for both elephants with the aim of stimulating and engaging them and building their confidence. In 2003 the elephants were moved to more spacious facilities. They evidently were invigorated by their new surroundings. Still, the situation was far from ideal.

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2 rare elephant species killed for ivory in Central Sabah

Sabre and another large bull are killed by poachers for ivory, with both carcasses found 1,500m from each other, says authorities.

LAHAD DATU: Danau Girang Field Centre (DGFC) and Wildlife Rescue Unit (WRU) teams are deeply saddened by the killing of two wild bull elephants by poachers near Segama River, Kawag Forest Reserve.

A first bull was found on Dec 27 last year in the middle of an estate bordering Kawag Forest Reserve while the second bull, was a gorgeous sabre-tusked bull called Sabre, that was earlier rescued from a plantation near Tawau and translocated to Kawag Forest Reserve three months ago after being collared by DGFC and WRU.

“We found the remains of Sabre on New Year’s Eve, with the satellite collar next to the skull,” said DGFC Director Benoit Goossens in a statement, today.

He said Sabre was rescued from a plantation near Tawau early October last year and fitted with a satellite collar and released into a forest reserve near Danum where he thought the animal would be safe.

“We were obviously wrong. In the space of a month, Sabre and another large bull were killed by poachers for ivory, both carcasess were found 1,500m from each other, although the killings did not happen at the same time,” said Goossens.

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