A Gang of Ivory Poachers is Nabbed in Gerik

Operation Gading in Gerik took three days and required 40 officers, but success did beckon at the end of it. Under arrest are four professional hunters who may have killed as many as 20 wild elephants for their tusks in Malaysia over the past decade.

The joint team from the Royal Malaysian Police and the Department of Wildlife and National Parks (Perhilitan) nabbed the four local men, aged between 40 and 50, during a well-coordinated operation. The officials discovered the men were in possession of several high-powered firearms, 255 bullets, 13 snares and various animal remains like deer antlers and tiger bones.

“Among items seized were RM10,500 in cash believed to be from the sales of elephant ivory; four firearms including a .458 rifle, two homemade shotguns and a Colt M15 as well as five homemade gun barrels,” Zulkifli Abdullah, director of the Internal Security and Public Order Department, was quoted as saying by the Bernama news agency.

“This is a notorious gang of poachers that the Wildlife Department has been tracking since 2009. We believe the tusks from the elephant have been sold by the group to foreign buyers,” Zulkifli added. “We hope this serves as a lesson to other groups to stop this kind of illegal activity and we will continue to work with Perhilitan to enforce the law.”

The four suspects are facing several charges for illegally possessing firearms while they are also being investigated for breaking the Wildlife Conservation Act 2010 by possessing snares and wildlife parts.

“Forests in northern Peninsular Malaysia are often a target of poachers because they are rich in iconic endangered species including tiger, elephant and bear,” the anti-wildlife trade watchdog TRAFFIC explains. “On 10th February 2017, a gang of seven men who were part of an elephant poaching gang were arrested with explosives, guns and parts of tusks in the state of Kelantan, which is also located in northern Peninsular Malaysia. Follow-up raids uncovered two elephant tusks, dried elephant meat and other wildlife parts.”

Over the past years several wild elephants are known to have been killed, either gunned down or poisoned, around Malaysia. In several cases the carcasses of the pachyderms were discovered without their tusks, indicating that poachers had been targeting the animals for their ivory. In fact, members of the team that caught the four poachers also found the remains of a male Asian Elephant in nearby Piah Forest. The elephant had died from gunshot wounds to the head and had its tusks sawn off.


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Sabah's jumbo-sized problem in translocating elephant herds

The Sabah Wildlife Department has been working closely with large plantation companies in handling human-elephant conflicts especially, in the east coast of the state.

Department director Augustine Tuuga said, unlike in Peninsular Malaysia where a herd of elephants were moved by trained elephants, the Sabah Wildlife Rescue unit had to use heavy machinery for translocation purposes.

“Those trained elephants are bought from Thailand and India, which require special care that involve higher costs.

“Besides that, (trainers) have to learn foreign languages to give commands to the elephants,” he told the New Straits Times.

Augustine said, however, the translocation method in Sabah involved an estimated cost of RM30,000 per animal.

The cost includes the heavy machinery, allowances for rescue personnel, as well as food for the herd, which can have about 20 or more elephants.

The translocation was made necessary when the “no killing” policy came into effect in 1996. Previously, the authorities had used “elephant bombs” to contain the species.

During the recent Sabah Elephant Film Festival 2017, which was held in conjunction with World Elephant Day, Augustine had said human and elephants here used to live together before the 1960s.

“The villagers in the east coast of Malaysia used to call the elephants as ‘nenek’ (granny) as a gesture of respect for the species.

“When forests were slowly converted into plantations, authorities began to receive reports of damages caused by elephants,” said the director, who had been dealing with wildlife for three decades.

He said at worst, about 100 elephants would gather at one location in one night and cause damages to several acres of plantations.

There had been reports that bees buzzing sounds or light bulbs may be able to ward elephants from getting near to plantations.

Augustine, however, said none of the methods had proven effective to date, as compared to electrical fencing, was can be afforded by big plantation companies and not smallholders.

Meanwhile, Wildlife Rescue Unit veterinarian Dr Laura Benedict said the team had encountered many incidents of elephant herds came too close to places with human population.

“There were incidents of elephants going under stilt houses, which required prompt response to translocate the animals.

“In cases where elephants had died, 32 per cent were poisoned and 16 per cent were suspected being poisoned,” she said, citing among others, the notorious incident where 14 pygmy elephants were killed in the Gunung Rara forest in 2013.

Based on a study by the Sabah Wildlife Department and World Wide Fund for Nature, there were 2,050 Borneo Pygmy elephants about 10 years ago.

There were also reports that elephants were being poached for their tusks, some of which are used as wedding dowry in Indonesia.

However, the recent killing of a female pygmy elephant with multiple gunshots in Kinabatangan remains a mystery as the animal has no tusk.

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DNA test needed to prove elephant tusk smuggled from Sabah

KOTA KINABALU: There is a need to increase border security if the elephant tusk seized at Nunukan port in North Kalimantan originated from Sabah.

Sabah Tourism, Culture and Environment Minister Datuk Seri Masidi Manjun said a DNA testing must be done to prove that the tusk was from Sabah.

"I have already asked my officers to get in touch with their Indonesian counterparts. But DNA sampling takes time.

"So we will wait for the results from investigations to establish whether the tusk comes from Malaysia or other countries," he told reporters after chairing the Malaysia Day 2017 main committee first meeting here.

He was referring to a recent Indonesian media report that an Indonesian worker was arrested with the tusk on July 24, at Nunukan port.

On claims that tusks were used as wedding dowry in certain cultures in Indonesia, Masidi said it was unfair to say that was the primary motive for ivory trade.

"I have heard of stories of Timorese people coming here to get married as they find it more difficult now to obtain tusks to be given as dowry.

"But we have never really established that ivory trade is driven by (dowry)," he said.

Meanwhile, Masidi expressed disappointment with stories of exotic wildlife cuisine like pangolins being served to Chinese tourists here.

"We don't know for certain as it is hearsay; no one has been caught serving them, so we have to prove it.

"But if there are Sabahans involved, you are doing a disservice to your own state, and those who have worked hard for wildlife conservation," he said.

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Malaysia seizes 18 rhino horns worth $3.1M from Mozambique

The horns were declared as art objects in a forged air bill with a fake final destination, says Malaysian airport customs director.

KUALA LUMPUR, MALAYSIA—Malaysian authorities said Monday that they have seized 18 rhino horns believed to have been smuggled into the country from Mozambique.

Airport customs director Hamzah Sundang said the horns were flown from Mozambique and transited in Doha before arriving at Kuala Lumpur’s airport on Friday. He said the horns, which weighed 51.4 kilograms and were worth 13.6 million ringgit ($3.1 million U.S.), were declared as art objects in a forged air bill with a fake final destination.

Hamzah said that custom officials made the seizure at the airport cargo warehouse based on a tip and that no arrests were made. The case is being investigated for smuggling of prohibited goods.

Rhino horns are believed to have medicinal properties and are in high demand in Asia.

In a report last year, the wildlife trade monitoring network TRAFFIC said Malaysia was a world transit hub for the flow of tons of illicit elephant ivory between Africa and Asia. It said seizures also linked Malaysia to Kenya and Uganda in the trafficking of 23 rhino horns from August 2010 to December 2013.

Conservationists say there are only around 30,000 rhinos left worldwide, compared to about half a million decades ago. All five remaining rhino species are threatened species, with three out of the five listed as critically endangered.

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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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Taking down of elephant hunting syndicate hailed

The Malaysian Conservation Alliance for Tigers (Mycat) congratulates the Department of Wildlife and National Parks Peninsular Malaysia (DWNP) and the Malaysian Armed Forces for taking down one of Malaysia’s most wanted elephant hunting syndicates.

The joint effort, under the joint 1Malaysia Biodiversity Enforcement Operation Network (1MBEON), saw the arrest of seven locals in Kelantan and the confiscation of many weapons, including firearms, explosives and ammunition for shotguns and high-powered rifles. Also seized were wildlife parts, including tiger teeth and dried elephant meat.

Known for targeting elephants, gaur, serow and sambar in Kelantan, Terengganu and Perak, the group is allegedly responsible for at least 15 dead elephants poached for their ivory between 2013 and 2016. Chainsaws believed to have been used to remove tusks from the elephants were also confiscated.

“This case tells us that poachers have access to serious firepower and that they are becoming increasingly well organised. We hope the Royal Malaysian Police will assist DWNP in bringing these criminals to justice,” said Dr Chris R Shepherd, regional director of Traffic in South-East Asia.

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