Experts: Malaysia and Indonesia should team up to breed rhinos

Precious addition: Twelve-year-old Ratu and her newborn calf Andalu resting at the Sumatran Rhino Sanctuary in the Way Kambas National Park, Sumatra. It is only the fourth known case of a Sumatran rhino being born in captivity in 100 years. Photo: NST

Wildlife researchers are pushing for a more cohesive effort between Malaysia and Indonesia to conserve the critically endangered Sumatran rhino.

With fewer than 100 animals left in Sumatra and Borneo, scientists are proposing that the population be managed as a single conservation unit.

The Sumatran rhino is found in Sumatra and possibly Kalimantan in Indonesia and Sabah in Malaysia.

“Although habitat loss and poaching are reasons for the decline, the reproductive isolation of the mammals, which are too sparsely scattered even within protected areas, is the main threat to the survival of the species,” said wildlife research NGO Borneo Rhino Alliance (BORA) executive director Dr Junaidi Payne.

He is the co-author of a paper published this week in the scientific journal Oryx, in which researchers demonstrate the necessity to consider the remaining populations of Sumatran rhinoceros in Sumatra and Borneo as a single conservation unit.

The paper was the outcome of a joint study by BORA, the Sabah Wildlife Department, the Department of Wildlife and National Parks, Universiti Malaysia Sabah, Cardiff University and Danau Girang Field Centre (DGFC).

DGFC director Dr Benoit Goossens, the paper's lead author, said the genetic differences are minimal and do not justify keeping the Sumatran and Bornean populations as separate management units.

A study of the Javan rhinoceros showed low genetic diversity in that population and there was a critical need for population expansion for the species to survive, Dr Goosens added.

Sabah Wildlife Department director Datuk Dr Laurentius Ambu said state authorities are working with researchers.

“We understand the need to exchange gametes between Malaysia and Indonesia.

“Actions to initiate genome resource banking and artificial insemination or in vitro fertilisation are under way in Sabah and elsewhere,” said Dr Laurentius.

He said it is considering sending Tam, a captive male rhinoceros, to Cincinnati Zoo in the United States to breed with a mature female.

Source: NST

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Gulagob, the rhino conservation breeding ambassador

Rhino conservation breeding project is being undertaken in Sabah since the number of rhinos in the wild is very few. 

According to Sabah Wildlife Department senior veterinarian, Dr Sen Nathan, the conservation programme is an important issue because there are only about 10-15 species left in Tabin Wildlife Reserve, Lahad Datu.
 
An ageing Sumatran female rhino named Gulagob has been brought back to the Lok Kawi Wildlife Park to serve as an ambassador to promote the rhino conservation breeding project. 

 

Gulagob is now about 35-years-old or about 140 years old in human terms is no longer reproductive was caught in Kinabatangan in 1994 and housed at the Sepilok in Sandakan for the breeding programme. 

She was brought to Lok Kawi in 2007 and sent Tabin in 2010 for another attempt to use her for the breeding process but she could not reproduce due to her old age and returned to Lok Kawi in March this year, he said. 

Dr Sen said she is an old animal and they want to use her as the ambassador for the rhino conservation programme before she died

This project is a collaboration of Wildlife Department with the Borneo Rhino Alliance (Bora) who is doing the rhino conservation work in Sabah and other groups to promote the awareness programme at the Lok Kawi Wildlife Park.

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Indonesia, Malaysia Agree to Save Last 100 Sumatran Rhinos

Sumatran rhinos (Photo by Dedi Candra / Yayasan Badak Indonesia)

 

The governments of Indonesia and Malaysia today agreed for the first time to collaborate on saving the Critically Endangered Sumatran rhino, the smallest and last form of the two-horned rhino in Asia that has lived on the planet for 20 million years.

The last wild populations of Sumatran rhino, Dicerorhinus sumatrensis, amount to fewer than 100 rhinos in total. They survive on the Indonesian island of Sumatra and in Sabah, Malaysia on the northern part of the island of Borneo.

The agreement was reached at the Sumatran Rhino Crisis Summit convened by the International Union for Conservation of Nature’s Species Survival Commission (IUCN SSC) at the Singapore Zoo with a wide range of international and national organizations.

Experts gathered at the summit proposed a two-year emergency action plan as an immediate follow-up to the event. The two governments now need to formalize the collaboration and agree on the next steps to tackle the Sumatran rhino crisis, brought on by an increase in illegal hunting and consumer demand for rhino horn.

Datuk Dr. Laurentius Ambu, director of the Sabah Wildlife Department, detailed some of the initiatives the two countries will take to conserve the last Sumatran rhinos.

“We would like to reiterate Sabah’s commitment and our willingness to further discuss with Indonesia opportunities to exchange reproductive cells of the species, move individual rhinos between our countries and to employ advanced reproductive technology as a parallel initiative in the Sumatran rhino captive breeding program,” he said.

Dr. Ambu made this pledge to more than 130 rhino experts, scientists, government officials and representatives of nongovernmental organizations from around the world gathered in Singapore this week to address the Sumatran rhino crisis.

They made their plans in view of lessons learned from previous conservation successes of other rhinos and species such as the Californian condor, the black-footed ferret and Hawaiian forest birds.

“Serious steps must be taken to roll back the tide of extinction of the Sumatran rhino,” said Widodo Ramano, executive director of the Indonesian Rhino Foundation, Yayasan Badak Indonesia, a nongovernmental organization.

“This could be our last opportunity to save this species and, by working together as a collaborative unit, internationally and regionally, with an agreed vision and goals, a glimmer of hope has been clearly demonstrated,” he said.

“We need to act together urgently, hand in hand, replicating some of the inspirational successes of other conservation efforts and aim to stop any failures that might impede progress,” Ramano said.

“The Sumatran Rhino Crisis Summit has been transformational by bringing together the two governments whose representatives committed to positive and proactive bilateral collaboration which is critical for saving this enigmatic species,” says Mark Stanley Price, chairman of the IUCN SSC Species Conservation Planning Sub-Committee.

“Huge progress has been made in specifying the resources needed to improve rhino surveys, security and monitoring,” said Price. “We have also explored the potential of new technologies and the role of integrating the management of wild and captive individuals.”

Summit participants were encouraged by the agreement, although the recent past history of rhinos has been bleak.

Read more: Environment News Service

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In Desperate to Save the Sumatran Rhonocerous

Sabah Wildlife Department (SWD) Director Dr Laurentius said the department is desperate to save the Sumatran Rhinocerous and are still unsuccessful in breeding the animal though they have discussed (the matter) with lots of partners in Sabah and IZW (Institute for Zoo and Wildlife in Berlin, Germany). He said in his opening remarks at the Forum on the Findings of Imbak Canyon 2012 Wildlife Survey held at a resort near here yesterday. Additionally, he said they were also working with their Indonesian counterpart who has recently seen the birth of a rhino calf in June, this year. At the same time, he also mentioned they would like to conduct rhino surveys at Danum Valley. He also commented on issues facing the orangutans and pygmy elephants in Sabah, where a study on the orangutan population at Lower Kinabatangan had been blown out of proportion by NGOs outside of the state. He hopes that the survey will propose like the linkages of those fragmented forest, where the best that can happen is to connect Ulu Segama, Danum Valley, Imbak Canyon and its surrounding areas.

Source: Borneo Post

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