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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Digital devices to track elephants, news for World Elephant Day

Digital trackers are being used to follow the movement of elephants, as part of conservation projects and to protect elephants from poachers. This digital innovation is timely for World Elephant Day.

Tracking the spatial ecology of elephants is proving to be an effective approach, National Geographic reports, to develop new solutions for maintaining and protecting elephant populations and their environment. An example is with the use of radio collars.

Radio equipped technology allows for the near-instantaneous observation of the GPS location of an elephant. Data are transmitted via satellite and the signals are interpreted by sophisticated software algorithms which monitor incoming elephant movement datastreams. Information, such as alerting that elephants that become unnaturally immobile, allows responses by those engaged in elephant conservation to be quicker. This could lead, for instance, to catching poachers.

Such technology has been used in parts of Africa for the past two or three years, and the use is expanding. Recently it was reported that latest GPS and satellite communication technology developed by The University of Nottingham Malaysia Campus (UNMC) and the Malaysian Department of Wildlife and National Parks was to be used to help follow Malaysian elephants.

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Malaysia: Electric fence to keep elephants away in the works

An electric fence will be built in Gua Musang to reduce the risk of conflict with elephants as their habitat continues to shrink because of deforestation activities.

Natural Resources and Environment Minister Datuk Seri Dr Wan Junaidi Tuanku Jaafar said he was seeking RM200,000 from the Finance Ministry for the fence.

“Building it is one of the mitigation measures to reduce conflict in areas populated by humans, while at the same time conserving the wild elephant population in its original habitat.

“Electric fencing is a long-term solution to the problem of wild elephants raiding human settlements for food,” Dr Wan Junaidi said in a statement after a recent incident at SK Seri Permai in Pos Pasik, Gua Musang.

Several wild elephants damaged fencing, doors and windows when they fed on bananas from the plants behind the teachers’ quarters.

Fortunately, the incident occurred on June 30, when the teachers and students were away during the Hari Raya break.

The school authorities reported the incident to the Department of Wildlife and National Parks (Perhilitan) on July 2.

The elephants also left behind piles of dung.

“The elephant incident in Gua Musang was the first in five years,” Dr Wan Junaidi said.

“Based on Perhilitan’s findings, the damage was caused by three elephants from the Bertam elephant herd.”

It is learnt that this herd is made up of about 20 elephants.

The damage caused was estimated at RM7,000.

“I have directed the ministry, through Perhilitan, to implement short and long-term mitigation plans to address conflict involving elephants,” Dr Wan Junaidi said, adding that short-term measures include shooting to scare away the elephants.

He also appealed to members of the public not to take matters into their own hands during conflict situations with wild animals.

“I appeal to all the stakeholders to give full co-operation to ensure sustainable management of the wild elephant population in the country,” he said.

Pos Pasik village chief Hashim Harun said the elephants raided the banana plantation at 4am and destroyed about 100 plants.

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Borneo pygmy elephants, planters battle for land

Niluksi Koswanage, Reuters
February 23, 2009

SUKAU, Malaysia (Reuters Life!) - Deprived of access to his favourite food, a pygmy elephant trumpets furiously and charges at wildlife officials, a manifestation of this rare species' battle against Malaysia's key palm oil industry.

Some herds of pygmy elephants, an endangered species according to conservation body the Worldwide Fund for Nature (WWF), are thriving on the fruit of palm oil plantations that encroach on their domains on Borneo island.

This has intensified the challenges to a mainstay of the economy in this South East Asian country of 27 million people, and the aggression the elephants show against humans.

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New Survey Finds More than 600 Asian Elephants

LiveScience
14 January 2009

A new survey of dung has revealed a population of hundreds of endangered Asian elephants living in a Malaysian park. The animals could be the largest-known set of these pachyderms in Southeast Asia.

The researchers counted dung piles to estimate that there are 631 Asian elephants living in Taman Negara National Park — a 4,343 square kilometer (1,676 square mile) protected area in the center of Peninsular Malaysia. This result confirms the largest-known population of elephants remaining in this part of the world, according to the New York-based Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) and Malaysia’s Department of Wildlife and National Parks (DWNP), which partnered to study the elephants.

Asian elephants are endangered due to habitat loss and poaching; between 30,000 and 50,000 may remain in 13 Asian countries. The Asian elephant is listed on the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species and has seen a drastic reduction in total population across its range as a result of illegal poaching, increased human-wildlife conflict and other threats.

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