http://www.theborneopost.com/2018/08/29/more-elephants-killed-by-snares-wwf/

KOTA KINABALU: Despite actions taken by the enforcement authorities and non-governmental organisations (NGOs) to end the continuous elephant deaths in Sabah, the fact of the matter is that more and more elephants are dying on our watch.

Just last week, WWF-Malaysia said there was yet another elephant death, this time due to a severe snare wound that led to septicaemia and eventually multiple organ failures.

The death of this jumbo joins at least 25 other elephant deaths since the beginning of this year.

WWF-Malaysia said even more worrisome than the number of elephant deaths are the number of elephants that have died due to strategically placed snare traps within their habitat.

In the past two months, WWF-Malaysia four elephants have died due to snare related injuries. These were all male elephants aged between one to nine years old. All four elephants were found at plantations surrounding the Sg Taliwas Forest Reserve and Sapagaya Forest Reserve.

According to WWF-Malaysia in a statement yesterday, snares are commonly used by poachers, where they are placed along animal trails in forest reserves bordering plantations with the intention of catching wild boars and deer.

Though elephants are very rarely the target of poachers, they commonly fall victim to these devices. This is because elephants use the same trails as other wildlife causing them to become a product of bycatch since snares indiscriminately kill wildlife.

If not treated early, snare wounds causes a slow and painful death for the animal as they lead to severe infection.

WWF-Malaysia together with the Sabah Forestry Department and the Sabah Wildlife Department have continuously worked together to conduct joint anti-snaring operations (Ops Jerat) to remove snares in the forest reserves that are bordering plantations.

As of now, five operations have been carried out and through these operations, 25 snares were found in forest reserves. Sixteen hunting platforms were also discovered in both forest reserves and surrounding plantations, and five pitfall traps that measured about seven feet deep were found in these plantations.

WWF-Malaysia said it will continue its Ops Jerat in collaboration with the government particularly in identified poaching hot spots.

Currently, the Sabah Wildlife Department is investigating known suspects and has raided their quarters in search for incriminating evidences.

The organisation added it had previously called for the amendment of the Wildlife Conservation Enactment 1997 to include a strict liability provision for private landowners to be held accountable and would have to prove their innocence should a death of an elephant occur on their land or evidence of illegal activities such as snares, hunting platforms and pitfall traps are found in their area. Through this provision, the burden of proof will be reversed, which would mean that it no longer lies with the prosecutors.

It reiterates its call for the amendment and strongly urges the government to look into the matter urgently. It recognises that this provision has several loopholes that needs to be addressed before it can be implemented.

With this in mind, WWF-Malaysia is open to working together with the government to address them. The organisation suggests holding stakeholder consultations with plantations first in order to allow them to voice their concerns and also provide their recommendations.

WWF-Malaysia said the time has come for someone to shoulder the responsibility for the death of elephants, especially those occurring on their land.

In order to stop the premature deaths of one of Borneo’s most iconic species, it said strong actions must be taken and they must be taken now. Plantations cannot afford to ignore poaching activities that happen within their land or the land surrounding them simply because they are not participatory to it.

Under the Wildlife Conservation Enactment 1997, the Borneo elephants are totally protected species, where the harming or killing of elephant, whether intentional or otherwise, is punishable by law.

WWF-Malaysia urges plantations to play an active part alongside the government and NGOs in the conservation of elephants in Sabah. Plantation owners and workers can play a significant role by being more vigilant and reporting any suspicious activities to the Sabah Forestry Department and Sabah Wildlife Department.

“The truth of the matter is that elephants will use plantation landscapes and therefore plantations need to accept that they have to coexist with these animals. If we are not careful, within our lifetime, we could see the complete loss of Borneo elephants in Sabah,” added the organisation.

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6 pygmy elephants found dead in Sabah in recent weeks

KUALA LUMPUR: Six Borneo pygmy elephants have been found dead in oil palm plantations in Sabah in recent weeks, officials said Monday, the latest of the endangered creatures to perish as their rainforest habitat is devastated.

The carcasses of the elephants, aged between one and 37, were discovered at different locations in Sabah, local Wildlife Department director Augustine Tuuga told AFP.

“We are currently conducting tests on their internal organs,” he said, adding the carcasses did not have any signs of gunshot wounds.


Tuuga said the elephants could have accidentally consumed fertiliser in the palm oil plantations, which could have poisoned them.

The Star newspaper, citing conservationists, said the creatures might have drunk from poisoned watering holes.

There are about 2,000 pygmy elephants, the smallest type of elephants in Asia, in the wild. Late last year, three were killed by poachers.

In 2013, 14 pygmy elephants were found dead in Sabah and were thought to have been poisoned.

They are threatened by widespread logging of their natural habitat to make way for lucrative oil palm plantations, and are targeted by poachers as their ivory fetches a high price on the black market.

The pygmy elephants are baby-faced with oversized ears, plump bellies and tails so long they sometimes drag on the ground as they walk.


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Another Pygmy Elephant dies from Gunshot Wounds in Sabah

Bornean pygmy elephants are facing existential threats in Sabah and so the death of any more wild elephants in the state is bad news. Yet just over the past few months several wild elephants have been shot dead by poachers or irate plantation workers.

Now another wild elephant is dead. The bull elephant, which was around six years old, had been shot and ended up succumbing to his injuries before staff at the Borneo Wildlife Sanctuary in Kinabatangan, where he was taken for treatment, could save him.

“During the examination, a bullet slug was found lodged in its injured front left leg,” explained Augustine Tuuga, director of the Sabah Wildlife Department. “There were also sign of gunshots on the body but they did not penetrate or cause any internal organ injury.”

The pachyderm also suffered an injury to his tongue, likely from a gunshot. “While undergoing medical examination and treatment, its tongue was found to have serious wound, believed to have been caused by a gunshot,” the director said. “The wound on the tongue made the elephant unable to eat or drink.”

The department’s rescue unit captured the elephant on November 24 at a plantation in Ladang Pertama after he had been reported to be acting aggressively towards locals in the area. He was showing signs of an injury on his left front leg. After tracking the wild elephant for some time, officials managed to capture him and took him to the wildlife sanctuary for treatment. But by then it was too late for the animal.

It remains unknown who shot the elephant, but the likelihood is that it was an irate plantation worker. “We will investigate the case further as it involves the death of a totally protected species,” Tuuga said. The elephant’s death is especially egregious as it comes shortly after another bull elephant was found dead with three gunshot wounds at a large plantation in Tawau, where another male elephant was also killed last month, bringing the tally of dead elephants, all shot dead, to three within the space of just a few weeks.

And so it goes: plantations have robbed wild elephants in the area of their natural habitats, severely reducing their roaming grounds. As a result, many of them can’t help but wander onto plantations, where they then encounter locals who look askance at the pachyderms feeding on crops. Some of these locals take matters into their own hands and shot the animals.

“When elephants come into conflict with people it is a battle in which the gentle animals are destined to lose,” observes SM Mohd Idris, president of the conservationist group Sahabat Alam Malaysia. “Those responsible for land clearance are highly aware of the increased risks of elephants coming into conflict with people and the subsequent fatalities that may arise,” he adds. “Many plantation owners and farmers now see elephants as enemies, yet it is humans, not the pachyderms, who are responsible for this situation.”

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Sabah moots ‘killer instinct’ wildlife rangers to fight poachers

An elite team of 50 wildlife rangers equipped with firearms may be the answer to Sabah’s escalating poaching problem.

Sabah Forestry Department director Datuk Sam Mannan said today that authorities have mooted the idea of a specialised team of rangers who would be trained to look solely into wildlife protection aspects including data and intelligence collection and surveillance, criminal analysing and prosecution.

“They will be armed, and work on shifts. They won’t do anything but 24-hour surveillance. We will give them guns — we have about 95 guns — Glocks, Scorpion and Italian shotguns. It’s not necessarily to shoot people, more for warnings, but if thing get heated, they have to be able to protect themselves,” he said during his speech at the Borneo Banteng international workshop and conference here.

Mannan said the idea is still at the proposal stage, but added that the elite rangers would be under the Wildlife Enforcement Unit if accepted. He also said they are looking for funding.

“We will recruit people who have experience in this field.

“There will be a specially trained unit that have killer instincts. We are dealing with crooks and we have to play dirty too. No mercy-mercy business,” he said, adding that there would still have to work out a standard operating procedure for firing shots.

Danau Girang Field Centre director Benoit Goossens who was also present said such action was needed in light of the escalating threat againsts Sabah’s declining wildlife.

“We have to take such action because it is getting serious. There are people hawking exotic meat at five-star resorts, things like pangolin scales.

“This year alone we have had seven cases of poached elephants. In West Malaysia, the animals are being poached for their hide. It’s not here yet but we have to be ready and show them we mean business,” he said.

Goossens said that there was willingness by the state authorities to carry out this proposal and hoped that the idea would be able to increase the likelihood of catching poachers and bringing them to justice.

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Yet another endangered Borneo pygmy jumbo found dead in Sabah

KOTA KINABALU: Another critically endangered Borneo pygmy elephant has been found dead even as conservationists call for informants and professional investigators to be engaged to stop the killing.

The elephant, the ninth slain in the last 14 months, was a healthy 12-year-old bull named Liningkung, that was fitted with a satellite collar 18 months ago.

It was found in the Ulu Segama Forest Reserve on Sabah’s east coast on Tuesday.

Rangers discovered its decomposed carcass with the tusks untouched.


Liningkung’s movements were being monitored by DGFC on a weekly basis, Goossens said, and they alerted Sabah Forestry officials on Dec 11 to say that it had not moved since Dec 3.

A team is in the area to carry out a post-mortem.

“It is another sad day for elephant conservation. If this goes on, we might be staring at its extinction,” Goossens said.

There are only about 1,500 elephants left in Sabah’s forests.

This is the third elephant found dead in the same area in the past year.

Goossens said it is vital for a special wildlife enforcement unit to be set up to go after wildlife poachers and traders as suggested by chief conservator of forests Datuk Sam Mannan.

Meanwhile, Marc Acrenaz, scientific director for Sabah-based wildlife research and conservation NGO Hutan, said informers and professional investigators are needed to stop the killing.

“Many years ago, locals killed these animals for food and it was not too serious.

“Now, we see that things have changed and people are poaching for the international trade or killing them because of animal-human conflicts,” he said.

No suspects have been identified in many of these cases, including a recent incident where a bull elephant was shot in the mouth and died of dehydration because it could not eat or drink.

“The authorities lack people on the ground,” Acrenaz said.

“We need a strong team which can identify the culprits and bring them to justice,” he said, adding that the killings might stop then.

For now, Acrenaz said, there are not enough rangers to cover all the places where animals – especially endangered species like the pygmy elephants, orang utan and pangolins – roam.

He said the three main reasons for poaching and killing were conflicts between landowners and animals (especially elephants), poaching of bush meat because of demand by tourists, and the international underground trade in exotic meat and animal parts like ivory and pangolin scales.


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Plantations in Sabah losing millions because of elephants

KOTA KINABALU: Oil palm plantations are losing millions from damaged crops, sometimes spanning 30 hectares in total, when elephant herds raid the area, says the Sabah Wildlife Department.
Its director Augustine Tuuga told FMT that smallholders were hit the hardest as they could sometimes lose up to six hectares of crops in just one night.

“Elephant raids are a major problem for plantations in areas where elephants are found.
“These herds damage oil palm trees and eat the shoots, causing the companies to incur big losses,” he said, adding that Sabah Softwood Bhd for example, reported a loss of RM3 million a few years back.

He said that the problem of elephant raids had become so dire that most of the department’s ground staff were in Kg Gambaron in Telupid to deal with the issue, bringing to a virtual standstill, investigations into the recent case of suspected poaching in Kinabatangan.
The department estimated that there were only 2,000 Borneo pygmy elephants left in Sabah and although the number was considered acceptable to many, Tuuga said he was cautious about their survival rates if poaching continued unabated.

He conceded that most of the elephant poachers were locals, who killed the endangered animals mainly for their tusks.

“We found that these tusks were sold overseas but many also sold them to the Timorese who have a custom of offering elephant tusks as dowries.”

On Thursday, the department released a statement that it was investigating suspected poaching activities after an elephant carcass was found floating in the Kinabatangan River near Sg Koyah on Monday.

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Plantations in Sabah losing millions because of elephants

KOTA KINABALU: Oil palm plantations are losing millions from damaged crops, sometimes spanning 30 hectares in total, when elephant herds raid the area, says the Sabah Wildlife Department.
Its director Augustine Tuuga told FMT that smallholders were hit the hardest as they could sometimes lose up to six hectares of crops in just one night.

“Elephant raids are a major problem for plantations in areas where elephants are found.

“These herds damage oil palm trees and eat the shoots, causing the companies to incur big losses,” he said, adding that Sabah Softwood Bhd for example, reported a loss of RM3 million a few years back.

He said that the problem of elephant raids had become so dire that most of the department’s ground staff were in Kg Gambaron in Telupid to deal with the issue, bringing to a virtual standstill, investigations into the recent case of suspected poaching in Kinabatangan.

The department estimated that there were only 2,000 Borneo pygmy elephants left in Sabah and although the number was considered acceptable to many, Tuuga said he was cautious about their survival rates if poaching continued unabated.

He conceded that most of the elephant poachers were locals, who killed the endangered animals mainly for their tusks.

“We found that these tusks were sold overseas but many also sold them to the Timorese who have a custom of offering elephant tusks as dowries.”

On Thursday, the department released a statement that it was investigating suspected poaching activities after an elephant carcass was found floating in the Kinabatangan River near Sg Koyah on Monday.

To read the full article, click on the story title