Dr Laurentius (centre) presenting mementos to Dr Heribent
By LARRY RAILON-Daily Express, 23 November 2010
Kota Kinabalu: The world’s attention will be on the Tabin Wildlife Sanctuary in Lahad Datu for the next 12 months or so to witness an attempt to breed the Sumatran rhinoceros – the world’s most endangered rhino species.
This will be done under a collaboration between the State Government and Germany. If successful, it will be an important milestone not only for the State’s conservation efforts but also the world.
The Sumatran rhino has been known all the while to be very sensitive with countless attempts made previously to breed it failing.
The breeding attempt is one of the collaboration projects under the Memorandum of Understanding sealed between the Leibniz Institute for Zoo and Wildlife Research (IZW), the Leipzig Zoo (LZ) and State Government, represented by the Sabah Wildlife Department.
It was signed Wildlife Director Dr Laurentius N. Ambu, IZW Director Prof. Dr Heribert Hofer DPhil and LZ Director Dr Jorg Junhold in a ceremony held at the department headquarters in Wisma Muis, here, Monday. The MoU is aimed at combining international expertise and resources in order to prevent further losses of biodiversity.
Sabah is internationally renowned as one of the world’s most important hotspots of biodiversity, including the world’s oldest rainforests with its associated fauna and flora. According to the IUCN, Sabah’s large animals – such as the Sumatran rhinoceros, Borneo pygmy elephants, Sunda clouded leopard and orang-utan, which are seriously threatened, face an extinction crisis.
For several years already, both the Wildlife Department and IZW have cooperated in conducting research on the conservation needs of threatened Bornean carnivores. This initiative has raised international attention through the re-discovery of the hairy-nosed otter in Sabah after over 100 years, and the first video ever taken of the Sunda clouded leopard or the endangered otter civet. With the MoU signed, this partnership will expand its remit to other Bornean flagship species such as the Sumatran rhino.
Germany’s Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) has agreed to finance the attempt to breed the Sabah rhino, the first project in the collaboration.
The Sabah rhino (Dicerorhinus sumatrensis harrissoni) is a subspecies of the Sumatran rhino and primarily lives in the lowland rainforests of the State. It is the smallest rhino and with less than 50 individuals it is the most endangered rhino species on the planet after the Northern white rhino in Africa. The Wildlife Department, with the cooperation of the Borneo Rhino Alliance (BORA) and WWF Malaysia, started a comprehensive conservation programme to protect and breed these impressive rhinos.
The Bornean Rhino Rescue Programme is jointly funded by the Malaysian Government through the Sabah Development Corridor as well as Yayasan Sime Darby. “Yayasan Sime Darby has been very instrumental in initialising the Rhino Rescue Programme here in Sabah. The IZW will contribute to this programme with its scientific expertise in assisted reproduction techniques, and the LZ will contribute their skills in animal husbandry and will train our local staff in handling the animals,” said Dr Laurentius.
The IZW is known for its scientifically based approach to conservation research. “With the financial support from the German Federal Ministry of Research and Education, which has recently been granted for the Sabah rhino project, we are able to implement research and to support the local breeding programme with high tech equipment and a team of experts from Germany and Australia,” said Dr Heribert. LZ will send skilled keepers to Sabah in order to exchange their experiences in captive management, enrichment techniques and in enclosure design with the local keepers in Lok Kawi and Tabin. “On top of this we will inform more than two million visitors annually about Sabah’s outstanding rhino conservation project in our tropical hall ‘Gondwanaland’, which will open in 2011,” said Dr Jorg.
The IZW and LZ are closely collaborating with dan pearlman, a German brand and experience architecture firm, which will help promote the Sabah rhino project in Germany.
The cooperation between the Wildlife Department, IZW and LZ was initiated in November 2009 during a visit by the directors of the two German institutions in Sabah. The parties agreed to cooperate, improve, develop and implement strategies in the fields of wildlife conservation research, wildlife veterinary medicine and zoo management science. Shortly after their visit, the experts from both organisations performed a reproductive assessment of a captive male and female rhino, conducted by a specialist team of wildlife veterinarian scientists led by Dr Thomas Hildebrant from IZW and Prof. Chris Walzer from the Veterinary University of Vienna.
In January next year, the next step of the programme of reproductive research will take place.
“A female rhino, recently transferred to Tabin, will be stimulated with hormones and artificially inseminated,” said Dr Petra Kretzschmar from IZW. Explaining further, she said the resulting embryos will be collected and frozen in liquid nitrogen. Her genes are very valuable for the survival of the species but she is unfortunately too old to breed naturally.Acting swiftly is necessary for the success of the Sabah rhino conservation programme and its associated research.
Large areas of rhino habitat have disappeared for oil palm production which has fragmented the landscape, making reproductive contact between individuals difficult.
The Rhino and Forest Fund, a German-based non-governmental organisation, will supplement the conservation research programme of IZW and LZ, restoring and reconnecting degraded and fragmented forest land through reforestation.
The aim is to increase habitat and reconnect patches of rainforest, enabling the movements of individuals and the continuation of breeding of isolated populations.
The project is conducted in cooperation with the Sabah Forestry Department.
It is believed that this approach, including cutting edge scientific know-how from IZW, training and preparation from a prominent zoo, a reforestation programme and a public awareness campaign is unique and necessary for the rescue of one of the most endangered species on earth.
Rhino horn nothing more than keratin, calcium, and melanin confirms research: Scientists Crack Rhino Horn Riddle
By Lisa Forster, Ohio University Press Release, November 6, 2006
Rhinoceros horns have long been objects of mythological beliefs. Some cultures prize them for their supposed magical or medicinal qualities. Others have used them as dagger handles or good luck charms. But new research at Ohio University removes some of the mystique by explaining how the horn gets its distinctive curve and sharply pointed tip.
Scientists have discovered new details about the structural materials that form the horn and the role those materials play in the development of the horn’s characteristic shape.
The horns of most animals have a bony core covered by a thin sheath of keratin, the same substance as hair and nails. Rhino horns are unique, however, because they are composed entirely of keratin. Scientists had been puzzled by the difference, but the Ohio University study now has revealed an interesting clue: dark patches running through the center of the horns.
The team examined the heads of rhinos that died of natural causes and were donated by The Wilds in Cumberland, Ohio, and the Phoenix Zoo. Researchers conducted CT scans on the horns at O’Bleness Memorial Hospital in Athens and found dense mineral deposits made of calcium and melanin in the middle.
The calcium deposits make the horn core harder and stronger, and the melanin protects the core from breakdown by the sun’s UV rays, the scientists report. The softer outer portion of the horn weakens with sun exposure and is worn into its distinctive shape through horn clashing and by being rubbed on the ground and vegetation. The structure of the rhino horns is similar to a pencil’s tough lead core and weaker wood periphery, which allows the horns to be honed to a sharp point.
The study also ends speculation that the horn was simply a clump of modified hair.
“The horns most closely resemble the structure of horses’ hoofs, turtle beaks and cockatoo bills. This might be related to the strength of these materials, although more research is needed in this area,” said Tobin Hieronymus, a doctoral student in biological sciences and lead author on the study.
The study also found that the melanin and calcium patches appear in yearly growth surges but the effects of temperature, diet and stress on the growth are still unknown. The results of the horn growth study may be of interest to conservation groups whose goal is to strengthen rhino populations and reduce the poaching of horn for the black market.
“Ultimately, we think our findings will help dispel some of the folk wisdom attached to the horn. The more we can learn about the horn, the better we can understand and manage rhino populations in the wild and in captivity,” said Lawrence Witmer, a professor of anatomy in Ohio University’s College of Osteopathic Medicine and director of the project.
The Journal of Morphology published the research findings in its October issue. Witmer and Ryan Ridgely were co-authors of the study, which was funded by the National Science Foundation and conducted with the assistance of O’Bleness Memorial Hospital in Athens, Ohio, and The Wilds, an Ohio animal preserve.
Dr Laurentius (centre) presenting mementos to Dr Heribent
By LARRY RAILON-Daily Express, 23 November 2010
Kota Kinabalu: The world’s attention will be on the Tabin Wildlife Sanctuary in Lahad Datu for the next 12 months or so to witness an attempt to breed the Sumatran rhinoceros – the world’s most endangered rhino species.
This will be done under a collaboration between the State Government and Germany. If successful, it will be an important milestone not only for the State’s conservation efforts but also the world.
The Sumatran rhino has been known all the while to be very sensitive with countless attempts made previously to breed it failing.
The breeding attempt is one of the collaboration projects under the Memorandum of Understanding sealed between the Leibniz Institute for Zoo and Wildlife Research (IZW), the Leipzig Zoo (LZ) and State Government, represented by the Sabah Wildlife Department.
It was signed Wildlife Director Dr Laurentius N. Ambu, IZW Director Prof. Dr Heribert Hofer DPhil and LZ Director Dr Jorg Junhold in a ceremony held at the department headquarters in Wisma Muis, here, Monday. The MoU is aimed at combining international expertise and resources in order to prevent further losses of biodiversity.
Sabah is internationally renowned as one of the world’s most important hotspots of biodiversity, including the world’s oldest rainforests with its associated fauna and flora. According to the IUCN, Sabah’s large animals – such as the Sumatran rhinoceros, Borneo pygmy elephants, Sunda clouded leopard and orang-utan, which are seriously threatened, face an extinction crisis.
For several years already, both the Wildlife Department and IZW have cooperated in conducting research on the conservation needs of threatened Bornean carnivores. This initiative has raised international attention through the re-discovery of the hairy-nosed otter in Sabah after over 100 years, and the first video ever taken of the Sunda clouded leopard or the endangered otter civet. With the MoU signed, this partnership will expand its remit to other Bornean flagship species such as the Sumatran rhino.
Germany’s Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) has agreed to finance the attempt to breed the Sabah rhino, the first project in the collaboration.
The Sabah rhino (Dicerorhinus sumatrensis harrissoni) is a subspecies of the Sumatran rhino and primarily lives in the lowland rainforests of the State. It is the smallest rhino and with less than 50 individuals it is the most endangered rhino species on the planet after the Northern white rhino in Africa. The Wildlife Department, with the cooperation of the Borneo Rhino Alliance (BORA) and WWF Malaysia, started a comprehensive conservation programme to protect and breed these impressive rhinos.
The Bornean Rhino Rescue Programme is jointly funded by the Malaysian Government through the Sabah Development Corridor as well as Yayasan Sime Darby. “Yayasan Sime Darby has been very instrumental in initialising the Rhino Rescue Programme here in Sabah. The IZW will contribute to this programme with its scientific expertise in assisted reproduction techniques, and the LZ will contribute their skills in animal husbandry and will train our local staff in handling the animals,” said Dr Laurentius.
The IZW is known for its scientifically based approach to conservation research. “With the financial support from the German Federal Ministry of Research and Education, which has recently been granted for the Sabah rhino project, we are able to implement research and to support the local breeding programme with high tech equipment and a team of experts from Germany and Australia,” said Dr Heribert. LZ will send skilled keepers to Sabah in order to exchange their experiences in captive management, enrichment techniques and in enclosure design with the local keepers in Lok Kawi and Tabin. “On top of this we will inform more than two million visitors annually about Sabah’s outstanding rhino conservation project in our tropical hall ‘Gondwanaland’, which will open in 2011,” said Dr Jorg.
The IZW and LZ are closely collaborating with dan pearlman, a German brand and experience architecture firm, which will help promote the Sabah rhino project in Germany.
The cooperation between the Wildlife Department, IZW and LZ was initiated in November 2009 during a visit by the directors of the two German institutions in Sabah. The parties agreed to cooperate, improve, develop and implement strategies in the fields of wildlife conservation research, wildlife veterinary medicine and zoo management science. Shortly after their visit, the experts from both organisations performed a reproductive assessment of a captive male and female rhino, conducted by a specialist team of wildlife veterinarian scientists led by Dr Thomas Hildebrant from IZW and Prof. Chris Walzer from the Veterinary University of Vienna.
In January next year, the next step of the programme of reproductive research will take place.
“A female rhino, recently transferred to Tabin, will be stimulated with hormones and artificially inseminated,” said Dr Petra Kretzschmar from IZW. Explaining further, she said the resulting embryos will be collected and frozen in liquid nitrogen. Her genes are very valuable for the survival of the species but she is unfortunately too old to breed naturally.Acting swiftly is necessary for the success of the Sabah rhino conservation programme and its associated research.
Large areas of rhino habitat have disappeared for oil palm production which has fragmented the landscape, making reproductive contact between individuals difficult.
The Rhino and Forest Fund, a German-based non-governmental organisation, will supplement the conservation research programme of IZW and LZ, restoring and reconnecting degraded and fragmented forest land through reforestation.
The aim is to increase habitat and reconnect patches of rainforest, enabling the movements of individuals and the continuation of breeding of isolated populations.
The project is conducted in cooperation with the Sabah Forestry Department.
It is believed that this approach, including cutting edge scientific know-how from IZW, training and preparation from a prominent zoo, a reforestation programme and a public awareness campaign is unique and necessary for the rescue of one of the most endangered species on earth.
Isolated rhinos in fragmented Sabahan forests will be captured and placed in a new rhino sanctuary in a last bid to multiply their numbers.
Article by Michael Cheang, The Star, August 18 2009
AS you head into Tabin Wildlife Reserve, there is a massive tree that stands tall and proud beside the road. The tallest tree in the reserve, it seems to stand guard against the advancing hoard of oil palm trees across the road that also serves as the border between protected and developed land.
Tabin Wildlife Reserve is in need of such guardians, symbolic or otherwise. Located 48km from Lahat Datu in south-east Sabah and spanning 120,500ha of the Dent peninsula that forms the northern headland of Darvel Bay, it is one of the largest remaining protected wildlife reserves in the country; and crucially, the last major stronghold of the Bornean rhinoceros (Dicerorhinus sumatrensis harrissoni).
Tam, a mature male found wandering in an oil palm estate a year ago, will be the first resident of a new rhino sanctuary in Sabah.
The Bornean rhino is a sub-species of the Asian two-horned rhinoceros, more commonly known as the Sumatran rhino. It is also the most endangered species in Malaysia, and will probably go extinct if there is no active human intervention, according to Junaidi Payne of WWF and Borneo Rhinoceros Alliance (Bora). Bora is a non-profit organisation and a joint effort between government and non-governmental groups that focus specifically on saving the rhino in Malaysia.
“In the past, rhinos were threatened by poaching, loss of habitat and so on. But now they are mostly threatened by the simple fact that there just aren’t enough of them around in one place anymore,” said Payne. “Tabin is the only place left in Malaysia where there is hope of saving the rhino because there are a few breeding individuals and we know the habitat is good because historically they were here.”
It is estimated that only 30 to 40 Bornean rhinos remain in Sabah, with the last survey in 2006 locating at least 13 individuals within Tabin. Consisting mostly of secondary regenerated forest (the area was heavily logged in the 1970s and 80s), Tabin has been a secure wildlife reserve for the past 25 years. It is categorised as a Class Seven forest reserve in Sabah – meaning its primary purpose is to conserve wildlife, and the forest cannot be logged anymore. It is also in no danger from being encroached upon by the surrounding oil palm estates.
Leafy lure: A Sabah Wildlife Department ranger providing leaves for the rhino at the oil palm plantation.
As such, it is only fitting that Tabin was chosen to be the site of a new (and some say, final) hope for the Bornean rhino – the 4,500ha Borneo Rhinoceros Sanctuary (BRS) where a small population of the animal will be left to roam free in the hope that they will mate and breed.
The initiative is jointly set up by Sime Darby Foundation and the Sabah Government. Foundation chairman Tun Musa Hitam and State Wildlife Department Director Datuk Laurentius Ambu signed an agreement on the initiative on June 30 at the Tabin Wildlife Resort located inside the reserve.
According to Musa, the project is part of Sime’s Big 9 campaign to protect nine endangered Malaysian animals – the Sumatran rhino, orang utan, hornbill, sun bear, banteng (wild cattle), clouded leopard, pygmy elephant, proboscis monkey and the Malayan tiger, all of which (with the exception of the tiger) can be found in Tabin. Apart from the rhino reserve in Tabin, the foundation has funded the Malaysian Nature Society conservation project on the plain-pouched hornbill in Belum-Temenggor forest in Perak.
“We are providing RM7.3mil, including RM5mil for the infrastructure, to build the 4,500ha sanctuary for the rhinos in Tabin,” Musa said, adding that the funding will continue for three years until 2012.
A bulk of the funding will go towards upgrading existing infrastructure like volunteers’ living quarters and roads, as well as encircling the sanctuary with an electrified fence, which will make it the first such project involving a large fenced up area in a tropical rainforest.
‘Tabin is the only place left in Malaysia where there is hope of saving the rhino,’ says Junaidi Payne.
The sanctuary is also unique in the sense that it is a “hands-off breeding programme.” Learning from the painful lessons of past rhino captive breeding programmes in Malaysia where most of the animals died in captivity, the rhinos in the Tabin sanctuary will be a confined area and it is hoped that nature will then take its course.
However, this does not mean that all the remaining rhinos in Sabah will be herded up into the area to breed. Payne said wild rhinos that are already within Tabin wildlife reserve would be left alone. What the sanctuary is setting out to do is to capture “doomed” rhinos in isolated forests all over Sabah, and put them in the sanctuary. .
“There are pockets of forests all over Sabah where individual rhinos are living with no hope of ever meeting a mate and they will never contribute to the species’ survival. The sanctuary aims to bring these so-called ‘doomed rhinos’ together in the hope that they might mate,” said Payne.
The sanctuary already has its first resident – a mature bull called Tam, who was found wandering around an oil palm plantation 48km from Tabin last August.
“We found Tam in an oil palm plantation, and monitored him for two weeks until it was apparent that he did not want to go back to the forest. No one really knows why. The feeling is that he was injured by a trap in the forest. Finally, the Wildlife Department decided to catch it and bring it here instead,” said Payne.
Tam was put in a 2,500ha fenced area where he is free to roam. There is also a makeshift paddock in the area where Tam is fed and where volunteers conduct medical check-ups on him. These are just temporary lodgings for Tam though. Once the sanctuary is ready (hopefully in a year’s time), he will be put there to mingle with the other rhinos to be captured.
“We are targeting to catch another four or five other rhinos, in the next few years,” said Payne.
He reckons that with funding from Sime for at least three years, the sanctuary has a chance to work. However, the success or failure of the initiative may not be known for at least 10 years or so.
“Even if we catch a small number of rhinos and they don’t breed within three or four years, it still doesn’t mean the project is not successful,” he emphasised.
While the main priority is saving the rhinos, the sanctuary initiative will also draw attention to the importance of protecting and preserving a wide array of biological resources within Tabin. These include trees and plants from primary and secondary forests, as well as a large number of animal species inhabiting the forest. Besides the rhino, it is also home to the pygmy elephant, tembadau, deer, orang utan and other primates, carnivores such as the honey bear and the rare clouded leopard, birds, reptiles, amphibians and different species of river fish.
Tabin Wildlife Reserve is home to many of Malaysia’s most endangered species, including the Bornean Pygmy Elephant An aerial view of Tabin Wildlife Reserve
“Hopefully, the higher profile that the project brings will help elevate the status of Tabin to the level of iconic sites such as Sipadan Island, Danum Valley or Maliau Basin,” said Payne.
A male rhinoceros recently rescued on the edge of Borneo’s rain forest is expected to become the first participant of a Malaysian breeding program for his critically endangered ilk, a wildlife expert said Wednesday.
The roughly 20-year-old Borneo Sumatran rhino, nicknamed “Tam,” was found wandering in an oil palm plantation in August with an infected leg likely caused by a poacher trap.
Tam, whose species is known for its solitary nature, has been resettled in a wildlife reserve in Malaysia’s Sabah state, the last preserve of the Borneo Sumatran rhino – a subspecies of the bristly, snub-nosed Sumatran rhino.
Authorities hope to bring at least five male and female rhinos into the reserve over the next few years so that they can mate and produce offspring, said Junaidi Payne, the senior technical adviser for the World Wildlife Fund’s Malaysian Borneo chapter.
“Their numbers are so low that they might drift into extinction if no one does anything,” Payne told The Associated Press.
Experts cannot confirm how many Borneo Sumatran rhinos remain in the wild, but estimates range from 10 to 30 individuals, many of them isolated from others in their species.
Borneo Sumatran rhinos have rapidly vanished in recent decades as their habitat has been lost to logging, plantations and other development. Poachers have hunted them for their horns, which are used in traditional medicines.
The rhinos in Sabah’s 300,000-acre (120,000-hectare) reserve will probably be able to find each other through their scent and mate without human interference, Payne said.
“If they are not stressed out by people, the chances of success should be better,” he said.
Hope for the subspecies was boosted after Malaysian government officials and WWF experts found new evidence of them in the wild in May 2005. Rhino protection units have since launched patrols to deter poaching.
Conservationists have warned the rhinos could face extinction in the next 10 years.
The Sumatran rhino captive breeding plan is poised for a re-evaluation — and a relaunch
The Sumatran rhino captive-breeding program caught 40 rhinos from 1984 to 1995. To date, the program has produced five calves.
Some view these figures as evidence of a colossal failure. Others point to the births achieved as proof of the program’s eventual success.
Momentum has been growing to relaunch efforts to capture wild rhinos. The most significant step yet was the September announcement of a new initiative dubbed the Sumatran Rhino Rescue.
This is the final article in our four-part series “The Rhino Debacle.” Read Part One, Part Two and Part Three.
There is a clip from the documentary Torgamba: the Last Rhino that I watch over and over. It shows Torgamba, the male Sumatran rhino who spent much of his life in the U.K. before being sent back to Indonesia, returning to his native country. Tom Foose and Nico van Strien are waiting for him. Neither of them are comfortable-looking TV presenters, but these are scientists, not celebrities.
Foose is as John Payne describes him: “nerdy,” with his slight build, thick glasses, short shorts and long socks. Van Strien is big-built and stiff. Both men try to look comfortable as Torgamba browses before them. Foose calls the moment “gratifying.”
“I don’t think he’s much bigger now than he was,” van Strien says.
“No, but he was definitely a young animal — his horn was quite short and now it really is quite spectacular.”
In the film, you can see just how small Torgamba is when standing next to Foose and Van Strien. The littlest, strangest rhino.
In 2006, six years after the film was made, Tom Foose died. He was only 61. He’d lived long enough, however, to see the birth of two baby rhinos, long enough to see his life’s work bearing fruit.
Tom Foose in 2001, posing in front of the Cincinnati Zoo’s Sumatran rhino enclosure with Emi and young Andalas in the background. Photo courtesy of the International Rhino Foundation.
Re-evaluating the failure
First, some numbers: the Sumatran rhino captive-breeding program caught 40 rhinos from 1984 to 1995. To date, the program has produced five calves. By any normal count this would look like a pretty spectacular failure.
“There weren’t as many rhinos as everybody anticipated. The rhinos weren’t as fertile as everybody anticipated. There were all those challenges,” says Terri Roth, head of Cincinnati Zoo’s Center for Conservation and Research of Endangered Wildlife(CREW).
But given how close the program was to accomplishing nothing but death and tragedy — given that the last calf was just born two years ago; that the remaining population in the wild may be anywhere from 30 to 80 — the captive-breeding program starts to look like a prescient gift from its founders. And maybe even the best chance to save this unique genus.
“For a combination of reasons, the collaboratively-managed global population imagined by the 1987 IUCN group was never achieved,” John Payne and K. Yoganand wrote in a 2017 report on the future of Sumatran rhino conservation commissioned by the WWF. “The most significant reasons included insufficient knowledge of key elements of rhino breeding biology, poor husbandry, unwillingness to share rhinos, more than half the rhinos unable to breed due to age-related problems or reproductive pathology and no work done to apply advanced technology.”
Though all this is true (in fairness, Roth and her team did try and artificially inseminate a female rhino), it’s a glass-half-empty view.
The half–full view: Conservationists have succeeded in five captive births, and they have etched a template of how to produce more. Rhinos are also living longer in captivity than in those early days.
“From the pioneer project, we amassed a lot of information on how to set up and consolidate such a complex operation, devise new ways of capture, handle, provide health care, translocate and breed the Sumatran rhino in controlled environments,” says Francesco Nardelli, the former executive director of the Sumatran Rhino Project. “The events at Cincinnati Zoo and SRS” — the Sumatran Rhino Sanctuary in Indonesia’s Way Kambas National Park — “are the living proof of the success of Sumatran rhino captive breeding.”
After the successful birth of five calves (three at Cincinnati and two at the SRS), there has been a shift away from the view that the 1984-1995 breeding program was a complete disaster.
“Today I consider obsolete and almost biased the rhetoric that the Sumatran rhino captive breeding project was a failure,” Nardelli says.
Tam under general anesthesia undergoing electro-ejaculation in Malaysian Borneo. Attending to him are staff from the Borneo Rhino Alliance (BORA), the Singapore Zoo and Peninsular Malaysia’s Department of Wildlife and National Parks. Image courtesy of BORA.
Other take a more nuanced stance.
“It was not a rousing success, but at the same time there was a hell of a lot learned,” says Susie Ellis, head of the International Rhino Foundation (IRF). “Everything that we’re relying on now … is sitting on the shoulders of all that work. What was perceived as a failure I think is actually going to be the thing that may provide the best hope for the future of the species.”
Without the trials and errors and eventual success — without Foose, van Strien, Roth, British zoo owner John Aspinall, Malaysian conservationist Mohammed Khan bin Momin Khan and many others — we wouldn’t know that a Sumatran rhino was an induced ovulator. We wouldn’t know that it didn’t graze on grass, like its African brethren, but that it fed on branches replete with the leaves, known as browse. We wouldn’t know that vicious fighting is part of their foreplay. We wouldn’t know that they need constant shade to prevent damage to their eyesight. We wouldn’t know how vocal the animal is — more so than any other rhino. We wouldn’t have any frozen semen samples.
This graph depicts the lifepaths of wild-captured Sumatran rhinos. The inner ring indicates the area where they were captured, while the outer ring shows their final place of captivity. Image by Willie Shubert/Mongabay.
In 1995, as the criticism peaked, the legendary conservationist Alan Rabinowitz wrote a landmark and scathing paper, “Helping a Species Go Extinct: the Sumatran Rhino in Borneo.”
In May this year, months before his death in August, Rabinowitz told Mongabay that things had definitely changed.
“I feel the same way in terms of the failure of that early program and the mistakes and short-sightedness that were part of the decisions,” he said, noting that there should have been more on-the-ground protection for rhino populations and more protected areas established. “I do not, however, feel the same way about the situation today.”
He said he had since come to believe that captive breeding was absolutely necessary. “I think captive breeding, ignoring perceived subspecies differences, and using the improved techniques that have been developed, are now definitely called for and worth the expense.”
Still, he said any captive-breeding efforts must be coupled with habitat protection and plans to re-release the rhinos one day.
“The success of captive-born Sumatran rhinos is definitely a good thing. It does not diminish the fact that the early efforts were misguided,” Rabinowitz said.
Since the close of that program, conservationists have captured six more rhinos, four of which survive today. But these captures weren’t a part of any wider, coordinated effort to take rhinos out of the wild. Instead, they were either removing the very last rhino from an area, or incidental captures due to animals wandering into villages or oil palm plantations.
One of these rhinos, Ratu, has proven key in keeping the program going: she is the mother of the two calves born at the SRS.
“As heavily criticized as this breeding program was back in the 1980s, if we were starting now — where we started in the 1980s — we would not have time,” Roth says. “We’re not starting there. We’ve learned a lot.”
More than 30 years ago, during the 1984 meeting, Ulysses S. Seal, then chairman of the IUCN’s Captive Breeding Specialist Group, said the new rhino program would need to follow a “safe-to-fail strategy.”
This meant the ability to make “many mistakes without losing the species.” Animals would likely die, unexpected challenges would arise, and there would be, in Seal’s words, “repeated failures.” This prescience about needing an opportunity to fail looks undeniable today.
Indeed, fail, we did. A lot. But we also succeeded. Time will tell if those successes will prove enough to stave off extinction.
Epilogue: Najaq
Earlier this month, a group of conservation organizations — including National Geographic, IRF, IUCN, Global Wildlife Conservation and WWF — announced a plan endorsed by the Indonesian government to capture wild rhinos and build two additional facilities to house them. Nothing on this scale has been seen since the 1990s. The idea is to bring in wild rhinos to supplement and add much-needed genetic diversity to the current captive population. Dubbed the Sumatran Rhino Rescue, the new program is currently in the fundraising stage.
But, in many ways, this new plan actually kicked off more than two years ago — it’s a shame it started so tragically.
On March 12, 2016 a female Sumatran rhino stumbled into a pit trap, set by conservationists in central Kalimantan, Indonesian Borneo. She was the perfect age to begin breeding and living, breathing proof of rhinos in Kalimantan, where they had been thought extinct for decades.
Within several weeks she was dead.
In thirty years, when looking back on the Sumatran rhino conservation program, the capture of Najaq in Kalimantan may be viewed as the start of the second capture program. For more than two decades — really from 1995 onwards — the shortcomings of the 1984 program halted captures of more rhinos from the wild.
“I think part of the reluctance in terms of allowing capture was this perceived failure of the earlier program,” Ellis says.
The other part of it is that catching wild rhinos is always risky, as the cases of Najaq, and Riau in 1986 and Linbar in 1987 and Lokan in 1988 and others unnamed, attest. Things go wrong; animals perish.
Mike Griffiths, founder of the Leuser International Foundation, says the “key policy makers” are “very sensitive” to catching rhinos due to the difficulty and risk. Of course, there are many ways to mitigate that risk.
Officially and publicly, Najaq died of a snare wound she sustained six months before her capture. However, there’s another side to the story.
Payne and Yoganand’s 2017 study cites an unpublished report on the animal’s death that points to several mistakes made in the capture and subsequent care.
Najaq was kept in her pit trap for at least 54 hours — four and half days —“subjecting her to stress and over-heating,” according to the report. Living in deep forests, Sumatran rhinos are rarely exposed to direct sunlight and spend much of their days cooling off and avoiding insects in wallows. Sitting in a pit trap for days, with constant human presence and noise, meant that Najaq was likely not only highly stressed, but potentially overheating.
“The snare wound was not the primary cause of death,” Payne and Yoganand conclude.
If this was the case, how did things go so wrong? Why hadn’t we learned from the many failures of 1984-1995?
“Too many people and institutions were involved in the capture and translocation plan, the majority with no relevant skills or knowledge,” Payne and Yoganand wrote. “There was no clear structure of leadership, decision-making and responsibility, and people with Sumatran rhino capture and translocation skills were not involved.”
Herman Stawin, senior wildlife ranger, shakes hands with veterinarian Zainal Zainuddin in front of a crate used to transport captive rhinos. The two jointly supervised the BORA team in the field. Image courtesy of BORA.
Payne, who along with his vet, Zainal Zainuddin, has successfully captured several rhinos, elucidated six key points they’ve stuck to over the years: a small team; a clearly designated leader; one vet “experienced in capture of Sumatran rhino by pit fall trap” and another person dealing with all non-rhino issues; everything ready to go the moment the rhino is trapped; the trap itself, measuring 8 by 4 by 6 feet (2.4 by 1.2 by 1.8 meters); and avoiding the use of drugs on the animals, especially psychotropic drugs.
“If you look at the case of Najaq and her death, none of these six points were followed,” Payne says.
Many agree with him. Erik Meijaard, a conservationist with decades of experience in Indonesia, wrote an op-ed blasting not only the WWF’s handling of Najaq, but its subsequent unwillingness to admit anything went wrong. Griffiths echoed criticism heard from many who work in the region when he said, “At the basic level the organizational structure and control was not sufficiently professional.”
Margaret Kinnaird, an expert in rhinos with the WWF, admits that things did go wrong.
“When Najaq was rescued she had already suffered a wound from a poacher’s snare, an unavoidable factor that contributed to her death,” she says. “Other factors including temporary holding conditions, stress and the drugs administered [that] may have complicated her situation. Arguably, there could have been better coordination among all actors during the capture effort — something that we have streamlined for any future rescues. The decisions taken during Najaq’s capture and attempted translocation were made by the highest authority in Indonesia with assessment and consultancy from a host of wildlife experts around the world. All parties involved during the effort had a role to play in the chain of events that led up to the failed attempt at ensuring she didn’t succumb to these complications.”
Still, Najaq’s death hasn’t stopped conservationists from viewing captive breeding seriously — as the newly announced Sumatran Rhino Rescue program demonstrates.
There’s been a complete turnaround. I’m stunned,” says Roth, who notes that when she started, the captive-breeding program was widely regarded as a total failure. “Now you hear exactly the opposite, that all the rhinos should be brought into captivity.”
Foose’s Vision
Over the last 30 years, the Sumatran rhino population in the wild has collapsed far more quickly than many could have guessed. In some places, populations have gone from estimates in the hundreds to near zero in a matter of a few years. Quite simply, the Sumatran rhino is vanishing.
So conservationists have returned to Tom Foose’s vision from 1984; in many ways the Sumatran Rhino Rescue is Foose’s Vision 2.0.
“I certainly think that we should get more rhinos into the breeding program, if for no other reason than we need the genetic diversity,” Roth says.
According to new numbers released by the Sumatran Rhino Rescue Program there are only around 80 wild Sumatran rhinos in the world spread over eleven subpopulations.
Nearly everyone agrees that all the rhinos should be rounded up in Kalimantan and Bukit Barisan National Park in southern Sumatra, where new numbers released by the Sumatran Rhino Rescue Program show the population at up to ten and up to five respectively. However, there is more debate about Way Kambas National Park, also in southern Sumatra, where new numbers show less than 20, and the Leuser Ecosystem in northern Sumatra, where researchers estimate fewer than 50 animals spread out over six subpopulations. Some believe these areas may house enough rhinos to sustain a wild population, assuming they are protected from poachers and snares. But others think it necessary to take animals out of these populations — if only to ensure we are capturing some young, healthy, fertile females.
“If there are still rhinos in their forests, they are no longer in sufficient numbers to propagate the species scattered as they are. Those last ‘forest ghosts’ need our help to meet each other now,” Nardelli says.
Ara, a male Sumatran rhino, at Sungai Dusrun. Caught in 1994 in Peninsular Malaysia, Ara survived just over nine years in captivity. He perished in 2003 when disease struck the facility of Sungai Dusun. Ara was the last wild rhino ever caught in Peninsular Malaysia. The species is now believed to be extinct there. Image by Mohammed Khan bin Momin Khan.
But Roth, who was instrumental in making the captive breeding a success, says we shouldn’t go so far as to bring all the rhinos into sanctuaries like the SRS.
“Now, I almost find myself in the opposite part of that spectrum where people are saying, ‘We have to bring them all in and [a managed] breeding program is the only way to go,’ and I’m kind of arguing, ‘No, I don’t think so, look at the Javan rhino,’” she says. The Javan rhino today survives in a single site with a stable, albeit small, population. Roth says she doesn’t see the dilemma as a binary — all captive or all wild — but a situation that requires “multiple strategies.”
“I’m not ready to give up on the wild populations,” she adds.
Griffiths says there are plans to catch some animals for captive breeding from the eastern Leuser population. But he believes conservationists should not take animals out of the western Leuser population, which he thinks is viable in the long term.
“The population of rhinos in Western Leuser is increasing in numbers and range,” he says, noting that they have evidence of recent births. Griffiths believes that if this area can be protected it could one day be home to “several hundred rhinos.”
Rainforest in the Leuser Ecosystem. Situated in northern Sumatra, the ecosystem is home to tigers, elephants and orangutans as well as rhinos. New estimates put the number of Sumatran rhinos in Leuser at high as 50. Photo by Rhett A. Butler/Mongabay.
What about Way Kambas? Roth says she’s not against taking animals out of Way Kambas — with a new estimate of less than 20 animals — to contribute to genetic diversity of the captive population.
But even as conservationists’ plans to capture more rhinos are coming into fruition, the question remains: Are we doing enough?
“Things don’t move fast enough. There’s no question. Again, deciding on what should be happening and then making it happen, those are two different steps,” says Roth, who calls the decision to catch rhinos “a huge step forward.”
In the meantime, she says, more can be done with the rhinos available. For example, she thinks that Tam, the last male rhino in Sabah, should be sent to Indonesia for attempted breeding.
“I know they’re concerned that Tam maybe is subfertile. I’m not sure that he is. I think he’s maybe just like all the other Sumatran rhinos,” says Roth, who notes that sperm samples taken from other Sumatran rhinos have been poor, even for proven fathers like Ipuh and Andalas.
Tom Foose, Nico van Strien and veterinarian Marcellus Adi at the Sumatran Rhino Sanctuary in the early 2000s. Image courtesy of IRF.
“As Tom Foose used to say… [we] need to maximize our options and minimize our regrets,” Ellis says. “And I think that’s where we’re trying to go, just to be sure we’re doing everything we can.”
We’ve come a long way from the meeting kick-stared by Foose in 1984. We know more than we ever have about Sumatran rhinos. And that knowledge may, in the end, be the only thing that saves them.
“Tom was the most visionary of all of us in the 1980s,” Payne says.
Without Foose, Sumatran rhinos probably would have never made their way to Cincinnati Zoo and our whole story would be very different — and likely all the more tragic.
“He was the one who obviously encouraged us all along,” Ed Maruska, former head of Cincinnati Zoo, says of this “dedicated rhino man.”
A mother rhino and her young: rhinos involved in the captive breeding programme at the Cincinnati Zoo
Together with the Javan Rhino, the Sumatran Rhino (Dicerorhinus sumatrensis) is the most critically endangered of the rhino species. This rhino species may represent the rainforest relic of a rhino which was once adapted to the open woodlands of the Pleistocene ice ages when sea levels were much lower than now, and Borneo and Sumatra were joined to mainland Asia via savannahs now under the South China Sea.
Over the past millennium, hunting and habitat loss have driven this rhino to the brink of extinction. Now, there may be just too few fertile females and males in any one forest area to sustain breeding.
Scientists now estimate that there are only about 200 animals remaining in the wild, clinging to existence in highly fragmented populations. As the persistence of populations in Peninsular Malaysia is very much in doubt, Indonesia and Sabah hold the only significant breeding populations. Between 30 – 40 rhinos are thought to be found in Sabah’s Tabin Wildlife Reserve, Danum Valley Conservation Area, and pockets of eastern and central Sabah.
In Indonesia, small populations may be found in three Indonesian National Parks in Sumatra: Bukit Barisan Selatan, Way Kambas and possibly Gunung Leuser.
Sumatran rhinos can be expected to persist and breed only in protected areas where they are physically guarded from harm by Rhino Protection Units. The continuation of this protection provides a necessary but perhaps insufficient means for the species’ survival. Active programmes to bring fertile females and males together may now be a necessary supplement to pull the species back from the brink of extinction.
The Littlest rhino
The Sumatran Rhino found in Sabah, is somewhat smaller than that found in Sumatra. It ranges from 4 to 5 feet in height, and 6.5 to 9.5 feet in length. Of course little is relative when discussing rhinos! Sumatran rhinos still weigh in at between 500 and 800 kilos. The Borneo form has been classified as a sub-species belonging to the same species as the rhinos found in Sumatra. This is based on skull shape, DNA and a slight difference in size – the Sumatran rhinoceros is now known as Dicerorhinus sumatrensis sumatrensis while the Bornean rhinoceros is more correctly referred to as Dicerorhinus sumatrensis harrissoni.
The Sumatran Rhino is also known as the Asian Two-horned rhino because of its two horns – a larger anterior horn and a smaller horn behind it. However, the main feature that distinguishes it from the other four rhino species is its covering of hair and reddish-brown skin. This is why the Sumatran rhino is sometimes called the ‘hairy rhino’.
Sumatran rhinos are browsers and consume a wide variety of plant species in the tropical forest. They have a lifespan of between 25 and 35 years. Mothers give birth to one calf every 3 years and the gestation period for a Sumatran rhino is 15-16 months. Females reach sexual maturity between 6 and 7 years of age, while males mature at approximately 8 years of age. Sumatran rhinos are generally solitary in nature and generally form temporary associations for mating before parting ways once again.
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Based on information provided by the International Rhino Foundation.
March 17 2009 saw LEAP helping to organise another groundbreaking conservation fundraising event with its partner organisation, BORA.
A ‘RHINO RESCUE LUNCH’ was held at a leading hotel in Kota Kinabalu. The Guest of Honour was the Sabah Minister of Tourism, Culture and Environment, Datuk Masidi Manjun and over 70 people participated, with representatives from the government, NGO and private sectors, as well as concerned individuals.
Generous donors gather for a photo at the March 2009 Rhino Rescue Lunch
An amazing RM530,000 (about USD$150,000) was raised through a novel and interactive pledge-making process where pieces of a giant jigsaw of a rhino picture were ‘bought’ by donors. The event helped to bring the plight of the Bornean rhino to a much wider audience and resulted in operational funds being secured for the BORA Rhino Protection Unit to function for another year.
Click on a photo to view some of the highlights of the Lunch.
By Christina Nunez, National Geographic, June 4, 2017
A Sumatran rhino that symbolized the power of social media to potentially save wildlife was euthanized Sunday in Malaysia. Puntung, a 20-year-old female, succumbed to cancer. She was one of three remaining Sumatran rhinos in the country.
“Today is one of the saddest days we’ve ever faced. As of this morning, Puntung’s suffering has come to an end,” said a Facebook post from the group Borneo Rhino Alliance, which had been working to save her. “She was euthanized just past dawn, ending her battle against squamous cell cancer.”
The critically endangered species often falls victim to hunters and poachers, many driven by a market based on false beliefs about the horn’s efficacy as a health supplement. The hunting threat, combined with a decline in habitat and dwindling opportunities to breed, has brought the world’s population below 100 Sumatran rhinos in total.
But it later became clear that the abscess was a symptom of the cancer that ultimately overtook Puntung. The Borneo Rhino Alliance said in late May that she could no longer breathe through her left nostril, could no longer make sounds, and was in pain. The Malaysian government authorized the decision to put her down.
Puntung, whose name translates to “stub,” lacked a front left foot, according to the alliance, which theorized she had lost it to a hunter’s snare when she was small. Announcing her death Sunday, the group said, “We’ll always remember her as a fighter.”
Read the full article and links on National Geographic
Isolated rhinos in fragmented Sabahan forests will be captured and placed in a new rhino sanctuary in a last bid to multiply their numbers.
Article by Michael Cheang, The Star, August 18 2009
AS you head into Tabin Wildlife Reserve, there is a massive tree that stands tall and proud beside the road. The tallest tree in the reserve, it seems to stand guard against the advancing hoard of oil palm trees across the road that also serves as the border between protected and developed land.
Tabin Wildlife Reserve is in need of such guardians, symbolic or otherwise. Located 48km from Lahat Datu in south-east Sabah and spanning 120,500ha of the Dent peninsula that forms the northern headland of Darvel Bay, it is one of the largest remaining protected wildlife reserves in the country; and crucially, the last major stronghold of the Bornean rhinoceros (Dicerorhinus sumatrensis harrissoni).
Tam, a mature male found wandering in an oil palm estate a year ago, will be the first resident of a new rhino sanctuary in Sabah.
The Bornean rhino is a sub-species of the Asian two-horned rhinoceros, more commonly known as the Sumatran rhino. It is also the most endangered species in Malaysia, and will probably go extinct if there is no active human intervention, according to Junaidi Payne of WWF and Borneo Rhinoceros Alliance (Bora). Bora is a non-profit organisation and a joint effort between government and non-governmental groups that focus specifically on saving the rhino in Malaysia.
“In the past, rhinos were threatened by poaching, loss of habitat and so on. But now they are mostly threatened by the simple fact that there just aren’t enough of them around in one place anymore,” said Payne. “Tabin is the only place left in Malaysia where there is hope of saving the rhino because there are a few breeding individuals and we know the habitat is good because historically they were here.”
It is estimated that only 30 to 40 Bornean rhinos remain in Sabah, with the last survey in 2006 locating at least 13 individuals within Tabin. Consisting mostly of secondary regenerated forest (the area was heavily logged in the 1970s and 80s), Tabin has been a secure wildlife reserve for the past 25 years. It is categorised as a Class Seven forest reserve in Sabah – meaning its primary purpose is to conserve wildlife, and the forest cannot be logged anymore. It is also in no danger from being encroached upon by the surrounding oil palm estates.
Leafy lure: A Sabah Wildlife Department ranger providing leaves for the rhino at the oil palm plantation.
As such, it is only fitting that Tabin was chosen to be the site of a new (and some say, final) hope for the Bornean rhino – the 4,500ha Borneo Rhinoceros Sanctuary (BRS) where a small population of the animal will be left to roam free in the hope that they will mate and breed.
The initiative is jointly set up by Sime Darby Foundation and the Sabah Government. Foundation chairman Tun Musa Hitam and State Wildlife Department Director Datuk Laurentius Ambu signed an agreement on the initiative on June 30 at the Tabin Wildlife Resort located inside the reserve.
According to Musa, the project is part of Sime’s Big 9 campaign to protect nine endangered Malaysian animals – the Sumatran rhino, orang utan, hornbill, sun bear, banteng (wild cattle), clouded leopard, pygmy elephant, proboscis monkey and the Malayan tiger, all of which (with the exception of the tiger) can be found in Tabin. Apart from the rhino reserve in Tabin, the foundation has funded the Malaysian Nature Society conservation project on the plain-pouched hornbill in Belum-Temenggor forest in Perak.
“We are providing RM7.3mil, including RM5mil for the infrastructure, to build the 4,500ha sanctuary for the rhinos in Tabin,” Musa said, adding that the funding will continue for three years until 2012.
A bulk of the funding will go towards upgrading existing infrastructure like volunteers’ living quarters and roads, as well as encircling the sanctuary with an electrified fence, which will make it the first such project involving a large fenced up area in a tropical rainforest.
‘Tabin is the only place left in Malaysia where there is hope of saving the rhino,’ says Junaidi Payne.
The sanctuary is also unique in the sense that it is a “hands-off breeding programme.” Learning from the painful lessons of past rhino captive breeding programmes in Malaysia where most of the animals died in captivity, the rhinos in the Tabin sanctuary will be a confined area and it is hoped that nature will then take its course.
However, this does not mean that all the remaining rhinos in Sabah will be herded up into the area to breed. Payne said wild rhinos that are already within Tabin wildlife reserve would be left alone. What the sanctuary is setting out to do is to capture “doomed” rhinos in isolated forests all over Sabah, and put them in the sanctuary. .
“There are pockets of forests all over Sabah where individual rhinos are living with no hope of ever meeting a mate and they will never contribute to the species’ survival. The sanctuary aims to bring these so-called ‘doomed rhinos’ together in the hope that they might mate,” said Payne.
The sanctuary already has its first resident – a mature bull called Tam, who was found wandering around an oil palm plantation 48km from Tabin last August.
“We found Tam in an oil palm plantation, and monitored him for two weeks until it was apparent that he did not want to go back to the forest. No one really knows why. The feeling is that he was injured by a trap in the forest. Finally, the Wildlife Department decided to catch it and bring it here instead,” said Payne.
Tam was put in a 2,500ha fenced area where he is free to roam. There is also a makeshift paddock in the area where Tam is fed and where volunteers conduct medical check-ups on him. These are just temporary lodgings for Tam though. Once the sanctuary is ready (hopefully in a year’s time), he will be put there to mingle with the other rhinos to be captured.
“We are targeting to catch another four or five other rhinos, in the next few years,” said Payne.
He reckons that with funding from Sime for at least three years, the sanctuary has a chance to work. However, the success or failure of the initiative may not be known for at least 10 years or so.
“Even if we catch a small number of rhinos and they don’t breed within three or four years, it still doesn’t mean the project is not successful,” he emphasised.
While the main priority is saving the rhinos, the sanctuary initiative will also draw attention to the importance of protecting and preserving a wide array of biological resources within Tabin. These include trees and plants from primary and secondary forests, as well as a large number of animal species inhabiting the forest. Besides the rhino, it is also home to the pygmy elephant, tembadau, deer, orang utan and other primates, carnivores such as the honey bear and the rare clouded leopard, birds, reptiles, amphibians and different species of river fish.
Tabin Wildlife Reserve is home to many of Malaysia’s most endangered species, including the Bornean Pygmy Elephant An aerial view of Tabin Wildlife Reserve
“Hopefully, the higher profile that the project brings will help elevate the status of Tabin to the level of iconic sites such as Sipadan Island, Danum Valley or Maliau Basin,” said Payne.
Dr Laurentius (centre) presenting mementos to Dr Heribent
Tam, a mature male found wandering in an oil palm estate a year ago, will be the first resident of a new rhino sanctuary in Sabah.
Leafy lure: A Sabah Wildlife Department ranger providing leaves for the rhino at the oil palm plantation.
‘Tabin is the only place left in Malaysia where there is hope of saving the rhino,’ says Junaidi Payne.
Tabin Wildlife Reserve is home to many of Malaysia’s most endangered species, including the Bornean Pygmy Elephant 
An aerial view of Tabin Wildlife Reserve
Tom Foose in 2001, posing in front of the Cincinnati Zoo’s Sumatran rhino enclosure with Emi and young Andalas in the background. Photo courtesy of the International Rhino Foundation.
Tam under general anesthesia undergoing electro-ejaculation in Malaysian Borneo. Attending to him are staff from the Borneo Rhino Alliance (BORA), the Singapore Zoo and Peninsular Malaysia’s Department of Wildlife and National Parks. Image courtesy of BORA.
This graph depicts the lifepaths of wild-captured Sumatran rhinos. The inner ring indicates the area where they were captured, while the outer ring shows their final place of captivity. Image by Willie Shubert/Mongabay.
Herman Stawin, senior wildlife ranger, shakes hands with veterinarian Zainal Zainuddin in front of a crate used to transport captive rhinos. The two jointly supervised the BORA team in the field. Image courtesy of BORA.
Ara, a male Sumatran rhino, at Sungai Dusrun. Caught in 1994 in Peninsular Malaysia, Ara survived just over nine years in captivity. He perished in 2003 when disease struck the facility of Sungai Dusun. Ara was the last wild rhino ever caught in Peninsular Malaysia. The species is now believed to be extinct there. Image by Mohammed Khan bin Momin Khan.
Rainforest in the Leuser Ecosystem. Situated in northern Sumatra, the ecosystem is home to tigers, elephants and orangutans as well as rhinos. New estimates put the number of Sumatran rhinos in Leuser at high as 50. Photo by Rhett A. Butler/Mongabay.
Tom Foose, Nico van Strien and veterinarian Marcellus Adi at the Sumatran Rhino Sanctuary in the early 2000s. Image courtesy of IRF.
A mother rhino and her young: rhinos involved in the captive breeding programme at the Cincinnati Zoo
Generous donors gather for a photo at the March 2009 Rhino Rescue Lunch
A Sumatran rhino that symbolized the power of social media to potentially save wildlife was euthanized Sunday in Malaysia. Puntung, a 20-year-old female, succumbed to cancer. She was one of three remaining Sumatran rhinos in the country.