Resources — Page 21 — Borneo Rhino Alliance

Dec 04 2010

Official launch of quarters for the Borneo Rhino Sanctuary-12th November 2010

The Sumatran rhinoceros is Malaysia’s rarest and most endangered species. Sabah now has the last known remaining small populations of this species in Malaysia, at Danum Valley and Tabin Wildlife Reserve, both in Lahad Datu District. What needs to be done has already been determined by government. The first need is to prevent the loss by poaching or by illegal traps of Sabah’s remaining wild rhinos.

The second need is to bring the few remaining rhinos which are not breeding to the Borneo Rhino Sanctuary, a managed fenced facility being developed at Tabin Wildlife Reserve. Dr Laurentius Ambu, director of Sabah Wildlife Department, recalling that only a decade or two ago, Tabin was a remote site with poor road access, said “The people who will be protecting, monitoring, rescuing and caring for rhinos need a comfortable place to stay”. This point was echoed by Datuk Junaidi Payne, executive director of the non-governmental organization named Borneo Rhino Alliance (BORA) in his briefing at the event. Yayasan Sime Darby pledged in 2009 to contribute RM5 million to development of Borneo Rhino Sanctuary over the period 2009-2012, as well as additional funds for management of wildlife in Tabin Wildlife Reserve. A part of those funds have been used to construct five units of staff accommodation at Tabin, with a total of fifteen bedrooms.

The accommodation, known as Rumah Gajah and Rumah Harimau Dahan, was officially opened on 12 November. Yayasan Sime Darby was represented by its chief executive officer Puan Yatela Zainal Abidin. Yayasan Sime Darby has pledged support for a wide range of programmes encompassing human welfare, education and sports, as well as conservation of the natural environment. At the same time, another house with six bedrooms, called Rumah Badak, funded by WWF-Malaysia and WWF-Germany was officially opened at Tabin, by WWF-Malaysia president Dato’ Seri Tengku Zainal Adlin in the presence of Dr Laurentius. Tengku Adlin noted that WWF-Malaysia, currently focusing attention on the Coral Triangle marine ecosystem and the Heart of Borneo forests, has had a long history of association with Tabin and rhinos.

The officiation of the buildings was witnessed by a variety of neighbours and agencies, including Lahad Datu District Office, Sabah Forestry Department and the Royal Malaysian Police Department, as well as Tabin Wildlife Resort, and the NGOs Sepilok Orang-utan Appeal and LEAP. In addition to Sime Darby, representatives of oil palm plantation companies included Tradewinds Berhad (Ladang Permai), Kuala Lumpur Kepong, PPB Plantations, IOI Plantations, Sabahmas, Tomanggong Estates and FELDA Sahabat. “All are neighbours to Tabin or other forest sites where rhinos occur and several are contributing “in kind” to the Borneo Rhino Sanctuary programme by way of support such as added security, help and accommodation for staff out on patrol, and even by supply of gravel for the rhino enclosure” said Datuk Junaidi.

[Show as slideshow]

Sep 26 2010

Female Rhino Gelegub to the rescue

TABIN (Lahad Datu): The only female Sumatran Rhinoceros kept in captivity at the Lokawi Wildlife Park was safely translocated to the Tabin Wildlife Reserve, near here yesterday.

Gelegub, the 28-year-old rhino, is now part of the Borneo Rhino Conservation Programme also known as the Borneo Rhino Sanctuary Programme in Tabin. The aim of the programme is to ward off the extinction of the species which now numbers at less than 50 in the wild.

The rhino underwent a 12-hour journey from the Lokawi Wildlife Park to the Tabin Wildlife Reserve, leaving the park at 6.30pm on Tuesday and arriving at about 6am yesterday. She was accompanied by a convoy headed by the Park’s Veterinarian, Dr Roza Sipangkui, staff of the Sabah Wildlife Department’s (SWD) Wildlife Rescue Unit and its veterinarians. They were also assisted by police.

Gelegub has been placed at the Lokawi Wildlife Park for the last three years prior to the move.

Sabah Wildlife Department Director, Dr Laurentius Ambu said that the decision to move Gelegub was made after consulting with rhino experts in the country as well as from abroad.

“The threat of extinction on the rhino is imminent, with less than 50 left in the wild presently and mainly in fragmented forest,” he said.

He said that SWD are working together with the Borneo Rhino Alliance (BORA), World Wildlife Fund for Nature (WWF), Liebniz Institute of Zoo and Wildlife Research and Liepzig Zoo with the effort to rescue the rhinos at these fragmented forest and bring them to the Borneo Rhino Sanctuary (BRS) where they can meet and mate naturally.

The BRS programme is jointly funded by the State Government and Yayasan Sime Darby.

Laurentius also commented that Gelegub is already too old for natural mating.
However, extensive examination has been carried out on her by local and foreign experts and they believe that she would still be able to produce viable eggs which could then be fertilized with the semen collected by the male rhino kept captive at Tabin.
The male rhino presently residing at the facility is known as Kertam. He added that for the fertilization works to take place, both female and male rhinos must be kept close to each other.

Meanwhile, BRS programme coordinator for the Sabah Wildlife Department, Dr Sen Nathan explained that the electroejaculation, ovarian stimulation, oocyte recovery and invitro fertilization as well as production of embryos would be the first of its kind carried out on Sumatran Rhinoceros.
“We will be working very closely with a team of rhino experts from Liebniz Institute of Zoo and Wildlife Research. We hope to carry out this ground-breaking procedure by late November,” he said. He added that risks are involved when carrying out the procedures.

“As with any medical procedures there are always risks. But we will take all important and critical steps to manage these risks. The age factor of Gelegub is our greatest concern. She is an old girl.”

However, with the team of experts that will be assemblying in Tabin for the procedure, Dr Sen said that he is confident the rhinos will be given the best standard of care possible.

Aug 09 2010

UMS to continue support for efforts to preserve endangered Sumatran Rhinos

Prof. Madya Dr. Abdul Hamid Ahmad (centre) presenting a souvenir, a pewter rhino, to Y.Bhg. Brig. Gen Prof. Datuk Seri Panglima Dr. Kamaruzaman Hj Ampon,Vice-Chancellor of UMS while Dr. Junaidi Payne looks on.

Universiti Malaysia Sabah (UMS) will continue to support efforts to prevent the extinction of Malaysia’s most endangered species, the Sumatran rhino. This was the message from Y.Bhg. Brig. Gen Prof Datuk Seri Panglima Dr Kamaruzaman Hj Ampon, Vice-Chancellor of UMS, stressed to the Board of Directors of Borneo Rhino Alliance (BORA), during a courtesy call by BORA to the Vice-Chancellor on 7th June, 2010. “The administrative HQ of BORA is located within UMS. In addition to that, UMS would be happy to host post-graduate students who may wish to conduct research on the Sumatran rhino in Sabah,” said Professor Kamaruzaman. Formerly known as SOS Rhino Borneo, BORA is a Sabah-based non-governmental organization, established as a non-profit company, dedicated to working to save Sabah’s – as well as Malaysia’s and Borneo’s – most endangered wild animal species, the rhinoceros.

BORA informed Professor Kamaruzaman that the Sumatran rhino is now so rare that the species probably has a chance to survive only in Sumatra and Sabah. “Focusing on one species, that may well go extinct without a programme to reduce death rate and increase birth rate, has the advantage of ensuring that we target our efforts and avoiding distractions,” said Associate Professor Dr Abdul Hamid Ahmad, director of the Institute for Tropical Biology and Conservation (ITBC) at UMS and Chairman of BORA. “But the rhino is down to such low numbers, no-one can be sure that the species will survive in Malaysia. Working with Sabah Wildlife Department and other key institutions, we will give it our best shot. Whatever happens, twenty or thirty years from now, we can all look back assured that we did whatever we could to save a species from extinction.” Dr Junaidi Payne, Executive Director of BORA, as well as consultant to WWF-Malaysia, expressed thanks to Professor Kamaruzaman and Dr. Abdul Hamid for providing office space for BORA in ITBC. “The individuals and institutions concerned with the rhino in Sabah now have to collaborate with one vision, if there is to be any hope of saving this species.” Cynthia Ong, founder of the NGO LEAP, and also a director of BORA, echoed this sentiment.

Aug 06 2010

Why are Sumatran rhinos so seriously endangered?

Current situation

The current number of living individuals of the Bornean subspecies of the Sumatran rhino (Dicerorhinus sumatrensis harrissoni; also known as the Bornean rhino) is possibly around forty or less. Sabah now offers the only likely prospect for saving this sub-species, and the best prospect for saving the species in Malaysia.

Based on morphological characters, Groves (1965) favoured separation of the Borneo form of the Asian two-horned or Sumatran rhinoceros (Dicerorhinus sumatrensis) as a distinct sub-species (D. r. harrissoni), with D. r. sumatrensis regarded as a single form occurring in Sumatra and Peninsula Malaysia. Based on mitochondrial DNA, however, Amato et al (1995) concluded that all Sumatran rhinos in Indonesia and Malaysia should be regarded as a single conservation unit. These results are of great significance : the Sumatran rhinoceros is now so highly endangered that mixing of Bornean and Sumatran forms in captive situations represents a potentially significant means to increase the number of births.

Historical context

The fact that the ecologically similar Javan rhino and Malay tapir became extinct in Borneo before the expansion of the human population suggests that natural factors may have played a role in the low population density of rhinos. Pressure from hunting of rhinos for their horns (a mainstay of ancient Chinese medicine) has likely been ongoing over long periods. The Bornean rhino was widely distributed in at least some localities in eastern and central Sabah in the late nineteenth century (Payne 1990), but the population was likely depleted below natural carrying capacity by that time. The species was already regarded as very rare and endangered in Sabah by 1961 (Burgess, 1961). Payne (1990) showed that isolated ones or twos of rhinos occurred in many parts of eastern Sabah as recently as the 1970s, but the species quickly became extinct at most sites during the 1980s. Davies and Payne (1982) noted that all Sabah rhino records compiled in 1981 showed that a natural salt source or mud volcano was present within a maximum of 14 km for all records, suggesting that the species distribution may be limited by access to certain minerals. More recently, it has been noted that all confirmed Sabah rhino records from late nineteenth century to present occur on sedimentary (most) and volcanic (some) derived soils, with none on crystalline basement and ultramafic rocks. Although overall rhino numbers have continued to decline in Sabah since 1980, the general pattern of rhino distribution (very small breeding populations in what are now Tabin Wildlife Reserve and Danum Valley Conservation Area, with a few scattered individuals elsewhere) has remained remarkably constant.

The argument that it is too late to save this rhino because of inbreeding is not valid. The African and Indian rhinos species were in a similar situation about a century ago, as were several other large mammal species such as the European bison, Arabian oryx and Pere David’s deer, all of which were built up to much larger numbers with appropriate passion and action by a small number of people.

Major threats faced by rhinoceros today

Very low numbers

The Sumatran rhino is one of the most endangered animal species anywhere in the world. Less than 40 rhinos are believed to survive in Sabah. Even if half are females, and some are too old or too young to reproduce, perhaps only six to seven remaining rhinos have the potential to give birth. With a birth interval of three years under optimum conditions, no more than two rhinos are being born annually (see below). The Allee effect (Allee, 1931) refers to a phenomenon whereby a positive correlation exists between of individual fitness (e.g. survival probability, fertility, reproductive rate) and population density of the species (Courchamp et al, 2008). As numbers of individuals of a species decline to a low very level, the various factors associated with very low numbers (e.g. narrow genetic base, locally skewed sex ratio, difficulty in finding a fertile mate, reproductive pathology associated with long non-reproductive periods; see below) conspire to drive numbers even lower, to the extent that death rate eventually exceeds birth rate, even with adequate habitat and zero poaching. In the absence of specific actions to bring Sumatran rhinos together and boost production of offspring, therefore, there is a strong possibility that the Sumatran rhino may go extinct even if protection of rhino habitats and rhinos can be maintained and improved.

Birth rate

The only information on inter-birth interval for the Sumatran rhino comes from Cincinati Zoo, where three young were born at intervals of 2 years and ten months between 2001 and 2007. For wild Sumatran rhinos, actual birth interval is likely to have been less in recent decades, because of the paucity of sites with fertile females and males present.

Cranbrook (2009) points to the long inter-birth interval of these taxa, and refers to Johnson’s (2006) modeling of different levels of off-take applied to large mammals, whereby a small increase in juvenile mortality can hold recruitment rates below a level needed to replace breeding adults. If Danum and Tabin are each assumed to contain 15 rhinos, and that about half are females, and that of those females some are too old or too young to reproduce, perhaps only three or four rhinos in each area will be reproductively active. With a birth interval of three years under optimum conditions, only one rhino will be born into each population annually – this would explain the apparent zero rate of population increase in these protected areas. Even this may now represent an optimistic scenario.

Reproductive tract pathology

At least half the female rhinos caught between 1984 and 1995 had reproductive tract pathology (Schaffer, 2001), a phenomenon associated with lack of breeding and carrying of fetuses to successful birth that appears to particularly afflict rhinos (Hermes et. al, 2006). The fact that at least some wild female Sumatran rhinos have exhibited this pathology at time of capture indicates that not all wild female rhinos are breeding, presumably due to insufficient fertile males to meet and mate.

Skewed sex ratio

A period of active capture of rhinos from sites in Sumatra in 1959, and from Sumatra, Peninsula Malaysia and Sabah where forest was being converted to plantations between 1984 and 1995 and Sabah revealed differences in sex ratio. Of nine rhinos caught in the Siak River area, Riau, Sumatra, in 1959, only one was a male (Skafte, 1964). At that time, Riau was largely forest-covered. Of twenty rhinos caught at various locations in Sumatra between 1985 and 1992, a period of accelerating forest loss, eleven were females. Later, in September 2005, two immature female rhinos were caught (named Rosa and Ratu), each having apparently moved into inhabited semi-forest areas from Bukit Barisan Selatan and Way Kambas National Park respectively. Of twelve rhinos caught in Peninsular Malaysia between 1984 and 1994 from several separate regions, nine were females. Since female Sumatran rhinos are believed to have smaller home ranges than males, and siting of rhino traps was based on well-used rhino paths, and the sample size is small, this bias towards females is not unexpected. Yet a severe bias in sex ratio in the opposite direction was observed in Sabah where, between March 1987 and November 1995, a total of ten rhinos were captured. Of those, nine were caught within an area of about 120,000 hectares which would up to around 1980 have been contiguous forest cover. Of the nine, one was a mature female and eight were mature males. Although the sample size is small by normal standards in biology, there are unlikely to have been many, if any, rhinos not located during the conversion of 120,000 ha of forest. Thus, the remnant rhinos in this small population were almost all mature males. The tenth rhino, caught in April 1989, was a young female (named Lun Parai) that had arrived near a major road and which may have come from Tabin Wildlife Reserve, the nearest large block of forest some 25 km away in a straight line. Not much can be gleaned from these records and a similar situation will not happen again, as there is now much less forest and much fewer rhinos. It is clear, however, that a biased sex ration may occur in very small populations of Sumatran rhino. The observations from Sabah also suggest that female rhinos, potentially easier to locate than males because of their presumed use of smaller areas, had already been selectively taken by hunters before the start of government-sponsored trapping for a captive breeding programme. Also, despite the very small sample size, the three cases of young rhinos moving out of forest into areas inhabited by humans suggests that young adult rhinos may tend to move far from their natal area.

Hunting and trapping

At any time, a single rhino poaching or inadvertent trapping event may represent the tipping point that pushes the species to a trajectory of extinction in Sabah.

Cause for optimism

The rhino in Sabah represents one of the few examples of a tropical large mammal where forest loss is not a major issue threatening the species. Conservation efforts can focus, therefore, exclusively on minimizing human-induced mortality and on bringing fertile females and males together.

References

Allee, W C 1931 Animal Aggregations. A study in General Sociology. University of Chicago Press, Chicago.

Amato, G., D. Wharton, Z.Z. Zainuddin and J.R. Powell. 1995. Assessment of conservation units

for the Sumatran rhinoceros. Zoo Biology 14: 395-402.

Burgess, P F 1961. Wildlife Conservation in North Borneo. Malay Nat. J. 21^st Anniversary Edition. Pp.143-151.

Courchamp, F, Berek, L & Gascoigne, J 2008 Allee effects in ecology and conservation. Oxford University Press, UK

Cranbrook, E. of 2009. Late quaternary turnover of mammals in Borneo: the zooarchaeological record. Biodiversity and Conservation 1572-9710 (Online), Springer Netherlands.

Davies, A G & Payne, J 1982 A Faunal Survey of Sabah. WWF-Malaysia, Kuala Lumpur.

Groves, C P 1965 Description of a new subspecies of rhinoceros, from Borneo. Saugetierkundliche Mitteilungen 13 (3): 128–131

Hermes, R., T. B. Hildebrandt, C. Walzer, F. Göritz, M. L. Patton, S. Silinski, M. J.

Anderson, C. E. Reid, G. Wibbelt, K. Tomasova and F. Schwarzenberger. 2006. The

effect of long non-reproductive periods on the genital health in captive female white

rhinoceroses (Ceratotherium simum simum and C. s. cottoni). Theriogenology 65: 1492-

1515.

Payne, J 1990 The distribution and status of the Asian two-homed rhinoceros (Dicerorhinus sumatrensis harrissoni) in Sabah Malaysia. Project 3935. World Wildlife Fund-Malaysia, Kuala Lumpur.

Schaffer, N 2001 Utero-Ovarian Pathological Complex of the Sumatran Rhinoceros

(Dicrerorhinus sumatrensis). (Pages 76-77 in : Schwamnler, H, Foose, T, Fouraker, M and Olson, D, Recent Research Elephants and Rhinos. Abstracts of the International Elephant and Rhino Research Symposium, Vienna, June 7-1 1, 2001)

Skafte, H 1964 Rhino Country. London: Hale.

Apr 20 2010

Pregnant rare Sumatran rhino spotted in Borneo

By RUBEN SARIO, The Star, 19 April 2010

KOTA KINABALU: Wildlife experts here remain hopeful about the future of the highly endangered Sumatran rhino following a rare picture of a 20-year-old female that is believed to be pregnant. The picture of the female rhino was captured by remote camera trap devices set up jointly by the Sabah Wildlife Department and WWF-Malaysia. The picture was considered rare as there were estimated to be less than 30 rhinos left on the entire island of Borneo.

bora preg rhino — The pregnant rhino captured on remote camera trap by WWF Malaysia outside Tabin Wildlife Reserve

International Rhino expert Dr. Terri Roth said she was hoping that the female rhino was indeed pregnant.

“There are so few Sumatran rhinos left in the world that each calf represents a lifeline for the species, she said here Tuesday.

Sabah Wildlife Department director Dr Laurentius Ambu said the department was working with WWF-Malaysia and the Borneo Rhino Alliance (BORA) to finalise the Rhino Action Plan that which would be expected to be ready for full implementation by August this year. The plan would address the conservation plans of the viable population including isolated rhinos, Dr Laurentius added. He said his department intended to take a “different” approach in managing the viable but isolated rhino population in Sabah.

Habitat protection and enforcement have been recognised as the main strategy in order to ensure the survival of the viable rhino population in forest reserves, while a breeding programme has been identified as the key strategy in order to address the conservation plan for the isolated rhinos, Dr Laurentius added.

The rhino breeding programme is currently supported by Sime Darby, the Malaysian federal government and WWF-Malaysia. The future of rhinos in Borneo now depends on how seriously the enforcement and security work in the forest reserves can be implemented and coordinated, said Raymond Alfred, Head of the Borneo Species Programme, WWF-Malaysia. The monitoring and survey work in the central forest of Sabah is currently supported by HONDA Malaysia, WWF-Netherlands, WWF-Germany and USFWS since 2005.

WWF-Malaysia is working with the department and the Sabah Forestry Department to look into reinforcing the security of the forest reserves that are the key habitats for the animals. Alfred noted that that data from an ongoing rhino monitoring and survey programme showed that the animals’ home range was affected by oil palm plantation expansion near the state’s coastal areas. The research also indicated that sustainable logging activities had minimal impact on the rhino population while conversion of forests especially those located adjacent to key rhino habitat into other mono-crop plantations such as oil palm would further worsen the fragmentation of the rhino population.