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.
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.
Liew (centre) presenting a gift to Wiratno during the exchange of mementos.
JAKARTA Aug 10 2019: The governments of Indonesia and Sabah-Malaysia have agreed to sign a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) on Conservation of the Sumatran Rhinoceros (Dicerorhinus sumatrensis) in Indonesia next month (September).
The move, which involves a captive breeding programme, is to prevent the extinction of the species in Sabah, given that Iman, kept at the Borneo Rhino Sanctuary in the Tabin Wildlife Reserve, Lahad Datu, is Malaysia’s sole surviving female rhino at the moment.
The agreement was reached at a meeting between Sabah Deputy Chief Minister Datuk Christina Liew, and Director-General Wiratno of the Directorate General of Natural Resources and Ecosystem Conservation under the Ministry of Environment and Forestry at the Ministry’s Office, here, yesterday.
Both expressed their commitment towards conservation of the Sumatran Rhinoceros and agreed that political will is crucial to the signing of the MoU, recognising that the rhino is one of the world’s most endangered species.
Liew, who is also Sabah Minister of Tourism, Culture and Environment, and Wiratno agreed on the need to sort out the administrative part to speed up the inking of the MoU.
“I promise to work towards the signing of the MoU in September this year. We will do our best. We cannot allow administrative issues to sacrifice the survival of the Sumatran Rhinoceros,” said Wiratno, who suggested that the signing ceremony be held at the Sumatran Rhino Sanctuary in Way Kambas National Park in Indonesia.
Liew said, she will brief Chief Minister Datuk Seri Mohd Shafie Apdal and the State Government on the outcome of the meeting.
“The Sabah Wildlife Department will iron out any administrative issues relating to the provisions in the MoU. In this respect, I will let the Chief Minister take up the matter with the relevant authorities in Malaysia,” she said, in response to the Director of Biodiversity Conservation, Indra Exploitasia Semiawan, who emphasised on the need to expedite the administrative process.
Liew was accompanied by her Ministry’s permanent secretary, William Baya, Sabah Tourism Board (STB) general manager, Noredah Othman, Sabah Wildlife Department director, Augustine Tuuga, STB marketing manager, Bobby Alex, and her private secretary, Helen Muhammari.
The Minister thanked Vice-Consul of the Consulate-General of the Republic of Indonesia in Kota Kinabalu, Sartono Hendrarso and Consul Cahyono Rustam for coordinating the meeting.
Input was provided by Wildlife Adviser to the Minister, Dr. John Payne, Augustine and WWF-Malaysia conservation director, Henry Chan, who expressed support for Iman’s IVF participation under the captive breeding programme in Indonesia.
In vitro fertilisation (IVF) involves the extraction of an egg from Iman and getting it fertilized in a specialist lab, using sperm from one of Indonesia’s captive male rhinos, before implanting the embryo (fertilized egg) in the womb of a surrogate female rhino. Indonesia is home to an estimated 30 to 50 Sumatran rhinos.
“This is the very first attempt at IVF using eggs from an aging and sick female (Iman) with the sperm of an aging and fit male (Andalas from Indonesia). What we are optimistic is the beginning of a process of refining techniques and protocols with a goal of success after several attempts,” Dr. Payne said.
Meanwhile, executive director of the Indonesian Rhino Foundation, Widodo Ramono, assured that his team will collaborate with Sabah Wildlife Department on the IVF procedure. The department will enlist the help of the Leibniz Institute for Zoo and Wildlife Research in Berlin for the collection of eggs from Iman.
Iman remains as Malaysia’s sole surviving female Sumatran rhino following the death of then Malaysia’s sole surviving male Sumatran rhino, Tam, on May 29 this year due to old age and multiple organ failures stemming from kidney and liver damage. Iman, who was captured in 2014, has been kept at the Borneo Rhino Sanctuary in Tabin Wildlife Reserve since then. However, the female rhino has been diagnosed as having cysts and fibroids in her uterus (womb) thus rendering her infertile.
Tam, a 30 to 35-year-old rhino, was captured near an oil-palm plantation in 2008 and translocated to the Borneo Rhino Sanctuary in Tabin Wildlife Reserve in Lahad Datu. Attempts were made to mate Tam with Puntung (a female rhino captured in 2011) and Iman (captured in 2014) under a captive breeding programme but these failed to produce viable pregnancies.
Puntung, then 25 years old, was reported to have reproductive problems with cysts in the lining of her womb. She was euthanised (put to sleep after her battle against skin cancer) in June 2017.
The Sumatran rhinoceros is one of the world’s most endangered species with only a small number left on Indonesia Sumatra island. Of the five species of rhinoceros in the world, the Sumatran rhino is the most endangered species.
The Bornean sub-species of the Sumatran rhinoceros, which is only found in Sabah, is the rarest of all rhinos, distinguished from other Sumatran rhinos by its relatively small size, small teeth and distinctive shaped head. It stands about 120 to 135cm at the shoulder and weighs not more than 700kgs.
Prior to this trip, a meeting involving four parties was convened to discuss the implementation of the provisions of the Draft Memorandum on Conservation of the Sumatran Rhino at the Ministry of Tourism, Culture and Environment. Liew chaired the meeting attended by the Ministry, Consul-General of the Republic of Indonesia in Kota Kinabalu, Borneo Rhino Alliance (BORA) and World Wide Fund for Nature-Malaysia (WWF-Malaysia).
The meeting also deliberated on the Implementation Arrangement between the Ministry of Environment and Forestry of the Republic of Indonesia and the Ministry of Water, Land and Natural Resources of Malaysia concerning the Collaborative Programme on the Application of Assisted Reproductive Technology (ART) in the Sumatran Rhinoceros.
In the Sabah context, it was reported that the harvesting of rhino horn by native hunters was encouraged in bygone days. By the 1960s, the rhinos had largely disappeared from western and northern Sabah, and became confined to the forests in the southeastern areas (that is, Tabin Wildlife Reserve and the forest reserve in Ulu Segama, Kuamut).
By the late 1970s, it was feared that the rhino was nearing extinction in Sabah. However, a statewide faunal survey from 1979 to 1982 revealed that some small breeding populations (in the wild) still existed at the Tabin Wildlife Reserve and Danum Valley Conservation Area.
In early 2007, WWF Malaysia announced that it had captured video footage of the extremely rare Bornean sub-species of the critically endangered Sumatran rhino. The footage was taken in a forest in Sabah. It was the first sighting of a male rhino in its natural habitat.
By 2003, the Sumatran rhino had become extinct in Peninsular Malaysia (which was seriously hit by poaching) when all five rhinos at the Rhino Conservation Centre in Selangor died due to an infection.
In Sabah, alarm bells sounded on the Sumatran rhino to the point of near extinction as far back as 2002, despite conservation efforts made by the Government. Numbers continued to decline due to poaching being the major threat. The mammal was ruthlessly pursued for its horn (said to have medicinal value) and other body parts. Other contributory factors were logging activities causing loss and fragmentation of the rhino’s natural habitat.
LAHAD DATU, Malaysia – The rhino breeding center near the entrance to Danum Valley Conservation Area sits like an oasis of calm against the cacophony of beeps, woots and zaps of the surrounding jungle.
So calm it’s eerie, in fact. No one is working on the grounds. There are no animals in the collection of holding pens and chutes. Despite a few spots of rust, the green paint shows none of the wear that would have come with housing cow-size animals. A silent generator sits in the corner, and the whole area is surrounded by heavy cable fencing that’s never been tested.
On a side of the road sits a sign that reads, “THE DANUM VALLEY BORNEO RHINO SANCTUARY, DVBRS.” The text explains that I’m looking at the site of the breeding program for the Bornean rhinoceros, but a parenthetical below notes, “THERE IS NO RHINO IN CAPTIVITY AS YET.”
In the three years since the center’s construction not far from the town of Lahad Datu, the Bornean subspecies (Dicerorhinus sumatrensis harrissoni) of the Critically Endangered Sumatran rhino (Dicerorhinus sumatrensis) has only grown more elusive. Most experts agreed in 2015 that the only ones still living in Malaysia were the three captive rhinos in an enclosure at Tabin Wildlife Reserve, east of the town of Lahad Datu. Sadly, that number is down to two: Puntung, a 25-year-old female captured in Tabin in 2011, had to be euthanized in early June, shortly after being diagnosed with terminal cancer.
Puntung, a female Sumatran rhino at Tabin Wildlife Reserve in April. Her caretakers discovered that she had cancer in April, which caused a serious abscess in her jaw. Photo courtesy of the Sabah Wildlife Department.
I’d come to Danum Valley in part to follow up on a revelation that one more rhino might still be lumbering around the valley’s old-growth forests. In 2016, a team of scientists announced that they had found something resembling a rhinoceros print in the 438-square-kilometer (169-square-mile) reserve. It touched off a flurry of speculation – mostly by journalists like me – that a remnant population of rhinos may be hiding out in Danum.
But since learning of the possibility, I hadn’t been able to find anyone to tell me more about what it might mean. During a recent trip to Sabah, the WWF scientist who led the expedition turned down my request for an interview. And others scoffed at my naïveté when I brought up the “discovery.”
Footprint or fabrication?
In fact, it seemed that many conservationists believe that this apparition – this potential figment that could have just as easily been from a small elephant as from Borneo’s diminutive, shaggy rhinos – could actually be a detriment to the species’ survival, rather than a sign of hope.
The footprint, publicized at a press conference, crystallizes a decades-old struggle over how best to ensure the survival of these animals. Should managers do all they can to maintain wild populations? Or should they gather the surviving holdouts and help them reproduce?
Those in the latter camp write off the print as a myth that’s skewing the focus – and funding dollars – of conservation away from where it should be.
“The ‘rhino’ is a fabrication,” John Payne told me in an email. “[People] keep doing that.”
A biologist with decades of research and conservation experience in Borneo, Payne took the helm of SOS Rhino, a conservation group now known as BORA, short for the Borneo Rhino Alliance, in 2009. BORA is focused on saving the Sumatran rhino through an intensive breeding program based at the facility in Tabin.
“There are no wild rhinos left in Malaysia,” he added.
In Payne’s view, such a highly publicized whiff that there might still be hope for wild rhinos in Malaysian Borneo is misleading. A single animal banging around the brush of Borneo means little to the long-term survival of the species, especially given the species’ failure to recover even in protected areas like Danum Valley.
With one or two exceptions in Indonesia, rhino populations just aren’t large enough to harbor the level of genetic diversity necessary for their long-term survival, said Muhammad Agil, a veterinarian and faculty member at Bogor Agricultural University in Indonesia. Once a group dips below 15 individuals, it’s no longer a viable population, Agil said.
The science also seems to indicate that that isolation could lead to reproductive problems.
Those facts should be guiding conservation efforts away from observation of the existing wild rhinos, Agil told me, with fewer than 100 animals scattered throughout the Indonesian forests of Sumatra and Kalimantan in Borneo.
“We don’t need to do surveys anymore,” he said. “We need to do search and rescue for the rhinos.”
The goal of such missions is to bring the animals into an intensive breeding program employing assisted reproductive technology, such as artificial insemination and the harvest of females’ eggs, as the only hope for the most endangered rhinos in the world.
Keeping wild animals wild
The push for intensive breeding isn’t new. Intensive breeding programs that began in the 1980s with 45 individual rhinos have only led to five live births in captivity, and three of those occurred far from the jungles of Southeast Asia at the Cincinnati Zoo in the United States.
But the broader strategy of helping Sumatran rhinos to reproduce hasn’t been immune from criticism. Critics argue that the substantial cash outlay required to keep rhinos in captivity and carry out techniques such as in vitro fertilization would have been better spent on protecting animals in the wild.
More than 20 years ago, Alan Rabinowitz, then a biologist with the Wildlife Conservation Society, strongly opposed the use of finite resources for captive breeding. At the time, Rabinowitz wrote in an essay in the journal Conservation Biology that “viable populations” of rhinos still existed in Borneo and deserved protection. He argued that captive breeding efforts didn’t address the hunting and habitat loss that nearly wiped out rhinos in the first place.
Then, in 2012, Rabinowitz, currently the CEO of the big cat conservation group Panthera, questioned the endgame for captive rhino breeding when threats to wild rhinos still exist for a news story in the journal Nature. That viewpoint still guides many of the rhino conservation efforts, said ecologist Petra Kretzschmar at the Leibniz Institute for Zoo and Wildlife Research in Berlin.
A Sumatran rhino (Dicerorhinus sumatrensis) calf in Indonesia. Photo by Rhett A. Butler.
“Today, the main strategy to help save the Sumatran rhinos is protection,” Kretzschmar said. Many funders want to see their money go to protecting wild populations – just as Rabinowitz argued for in 1995 – because they see that as the priority.
But, “It’s not,” Kretzschmar said. “Protection of the habitat is important, but it will not save the species.”
Beyond protection
The idea of keeping rhinos in the wild fits with the ethos of conservation, to keep as many wild animals as possible roaming around their natural habitats, subject to no outside mastery other than their own whims. And perhaps that’s why news that someone found a print is so intoxicating.
I certainly took a sip of that wine, even as the scientists I spoke with told me I might as well be chasing a unicorn. It’s a scene many of us dream of: stumbling upon a remnant of one of the world’s rarest animals, standing healthy and virile in the forest as its ancestors have in Southeast Asian rainforests for millions of years.
If there was anywhere in Malaysian Borneo rhinos would be, I thought, it seems that Danum Valley would be the place, a reserve that some of the world’s most seasoned tropical ecologists speak of only in hushed tones. Imagine flipping through a time-lapse series of rainforest photographs where you can watch the stepwise creep of the vegetation skyward in a slow-motion race for sunlight. It’s a punishing competition, and the decaying biomass all around leaves little doubt about what happens to the losers.
Big animals themselves in the forest are elusive. Within half a kilometer of the Danum Valley Field Centre, however, my guide Dedy points out the fresh mud wallows of boars from the night before and, in another spot, a pungent mix of dung, tracks and broken branches – souvenirs from their recent brush with an elephant herd moving up a creek bed.
Never mind that the ephemeral 700-kilogram (1,500-pound) animal left behind no other signs. And it still seemed unlikely that a rhino would escape the notice of the roughly 100 scientists working in the conservation area at any given time. That absence of a rhino sighting in Danum Valley since 2014 has been misinterpreted, BORA’s John Payne said.
“They think that not finding them means they’re not easy to find,” he told me when we met in Kota Kinabalu, Sabah’s capital city. “They’re easy to find.”
And the wild population’s downward spiral may have been beyond the help of conventional, protection-centered conservation for decades, Payne said, adding, “It should have been blindingly obvious that no rhino populations were demographically viable 50 years ago.”
The decimation of Borneo’s rhinos
Beginning in the 1930s, people started hunting the Bornean subspecies. Unlike their African cousins, which were (and have continued to be) a favorite quarry of foreign hunters, rhinos in Borneo were targeted from the outset by locals to fuel – then as now – the trade of rhino horn going mostly to China.
It wasn’t long before someone figured out that the island’s rhinos couldn’t withstand this kind of pressure. As early as the 1980s, scientists sounded the alarm that rhinos were at risk of being wiped out and that we needed to eliminate the threats to their survival.
But when conservationists began working to staunch poaching and rhino habitat loss, the numbers didn’t rebound the way that other rhino species had under similar protections, Kretzschmar said, who works in rhino conservation all over the world. Today, Africa’s southern white rhino (Ceratotherium simum simum) stands as a testament to the success of earnest protection: Hunting slashed the population to no more than 100 animals by 1895, but today there are more than 20,000.
A Sumatran rhino calf wallows in the mud while its mother looks on. Conservationists hope to increase the success rate of captive breeding programs for the Critically Endangered species. Photo by Rhett A. Butler.
The Sumatran rhino has followed a different path.
In small populations, maintaining genetic diversity is a concern of course, but so is the chance that they’ll bump into each other. With so few rhinos, “There’s only little chance for the individuals to meet each other,” Kretzschmar said.
This reality seems to be particularly true on the island of Borneo. For all of the spectacular life it supports, the number of large animals Borneo supports is relatively meager. A landmark study in the 1980s revealed that the island’s soils don’t pack the same levels of nutrients found elsewhere in Southeast Asia, and subsequent research postulated that this difference crimps the numbers of big mammals that can survive on the island.
The behavior of Borneo’s rhinos doesn’t seem to have helped the species out very much either, especially as those numbers continued their downward trajectory. As far as we know, they like to keep to themselves, and the desire to breed doesn’t seem to convince them to push those boundaries of solitude.
“It’s all preprogrammed inside them that they will not go beyond their territory to look for a mate,” said Zainal Zahari, a veterinarian with BORA.
In more than 30 years working alongside these animals, he is well-versed in the quirks of Sumatran rhino biology. He and other rhino biologists believe that this isolation, caused first and foremost by the decimation of the species at the hands of hunters and the loss of their forest homes throughout much of the 20th century, has not only whittled away the diverse gene pool that keeps animals healthy. It has also kept the rhinos from finding each other. They think that it has caused the tumors in the females’ reproductive tracts that have thus far made successful captive breeding such an elusive outcome.
The issue may have to do with the animals’ own biochemistry. Female rhinos continue to cycle through estrus whether there’s a bull around or not. If they don’t copulate, biologists think that the “hormone overload” during this time in their cycles, which would ordinarily prime them for pregnancy, might actually be causing these reproductive problems, according to research that identified similar problems in Indian rhinos (Rhinoceros unicornis).
All of these issues mean that the remaining rhinos have little chance of reproducing on their own. Right now, in Indonesia, more wild rhinos could be captured and brought into breeding programs, such as the Sumatran Rhino Sanctuary in Way Kambas National Park, where two rhinos have been born in captivity.
Zahari notes the tensions that come with working across international borders.
“There is still distrust,” he said. “There is still patriotism.”
Still, BORA’s staff there wants to share what they’ve learned with Indonesia for the sake of the species. The team has made a lot of progress in their understanding of how to keep these animals healthy, he said.
Kretzschmar and Zahari were both heartened by a recent meeting of rhino conservationists in Jakarta, during which the Indonesian government signaled an openness to using artificial insemination, Kretzschmar said.
Muhammad Agil said that a team in Indonesia was poised to share semen collected from one of its captive bulls with BORA in Sabah, once approval from the Indonesian government comes through. They also hope to receive semen from Tam, a bull kept at Tabin. Agil said this sort of sharing between sanctuaries was essential to maintain the genetic diversity of the few Sumatran rhinos left.
He also reported a better understanding of the fact that scientists, NGOs and governments can no longer keep their efforts to themselves. “It will be more valuable and the success rate will be higher if we can get all of the experts to work together,” he said.
As Kretzschmar told me before the conference, “The most critical and important point to save the Sumatran rhino comes down to communication – communication between governments, but also between organizations.” And everyone needs to come together to pull the animal from the claws of extinction.
“It should be one management plan,” she added.
If the rhino conservation community cannot find a way to share these lessons, “They will make the same mistakes that Sabah did,” Zahari said. “Then the story stops there.”
Now, acting quickly is as important as the willingness on both sides to bring the animals together and create one breeding program to save the species.
“Numbers are dropping,” Kretzschmar said, “and if there is not a speed-up in the process, the whole species is going to be extinct in the next 10 years.”
Payne laments that a single program to save the Sumatran rhinoceros “should have been done years ago.” Like a relic to that missed opportunity, the rhino sanctuary in Danum Valley sits unused, and it seems unlikely that a rhino will ever make its way through the gates there.
The center also represents an obsolete way of thinking, that there should – or could – be separate breeding programs for this imperiled species. Paradoxically, such places, built expressly for the preservation of the species, might create the same conditions that spurred the need for them in the first place.
“It doesn’t help if we have [multiple] breeding centers” that aren’t working together with just a few animals in each, Kretzschmar said. “Then we have isolated populations again.”
By Avila Geraldine NST Online, November 24, 2019 KOTA KINABALU: Malaysia has done its level best to save the Sumatran rhinoceros since the 1980s, including mooting breeding programmes and pursuing conservation collaborations with key parties – all to no avail.
Iman in her paddock. Pic from BORA
Borneo Rhino Alliance (Bora) executive director Dr John Payne told the New Straits Times that many opportunities to save the species had been rejected by “people in positions of authority.”
“Starting with International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) experts in 1984, who argued that only non-breeding Sumatran rhinos should be brought into a global managed breeding programme,” he said today.
The IUCN is the world’s main authority on the species’ conservation. Payne observed that the same indifferent attitude prevails today.
“I am particularly disappointed that a letter of intent for collaboration signed by key parties in 2012 has been ignored by all parties, except the government of Malaysia and Sabah as well as Bora, despite our numerous repeated attempts to engage,” he said.
In August this year, Deputy Chief Minister cum state Tourism, Culture, and Environment Minister Datuk Christina Liew led a Sabah delegation to Jakarta to discuss a Malaysia-Indonesia rhino conservation collaboration.
Payne was part of the delegation, along with Sabah Wildlife Department director Augustine Tuuga and WWF-Malaysia conservation director Dr Henry Chan.
The meeting with Indonesia is said to have borne fruit with the proposed collaboration expected to be inked in September. But the signing of the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) is still pending.
Prior to the Jakarta visit, the Sabah government initiated continuous efforts to push for collaboration with the neighbouring country.
“I do not want to add to the toxic Indonesia versus Malaysia (debate), but I do want to say that Malaysia is now far ahead of Indonesia in many aspects of Sumatran rhino conservation. The long-awaited MoU is now needed more than ever,” stressed Payne.
“Malaysia and our colleagues in Germany, Italy and the IPB (Institut Pertanian Bogor) University have much to offer, not least in management of female Sumatran rhinos with reproductive pathology, safe harvesting of gametes from living rhinos, and cell culture, as well as capture and translocation of Sumatran rhinos from remote areas,” he added.
Payne noted that Malaysia’s three female captive Sumatran rhinos – Iman, Puntung, and Gelobog – and male captive rhino Tam all live on as cell cultures.
“Technology already exists to make eggs and sperm from these cultures. Technology to allow embryos of one species to be successfully implanted into the womb of another will be with us in the not too distant future.
“But then, the need for this could have been avoided if the decision makers all decided to collaborate from the 1980s,” he added.
Yesterday, Malaysia’s last Sumatran rhino, Iman, died at the Borneo Rhino Sanctuary at the Tabin Wildlife Reserve, Lahad Datu.
Iman was the last wild rhino spotted deep in the jungles of Sabah in 2014. She was captured at Danum Valley and was taken to the rhino sanctuary for care until she died.
Puntung was captured in 2011 and euthanised in June 2017.
Tam was captured in Aug 2010 and died in May 2019. His body was preserved and is on display at the Sabah state museum.
Gelogob was captured in 1994 and died in 2014. She was the longest-living female rhino in captivity.
Sumatran rhinos in captivity, as listed by Bernama:
1987 – Linbar, male, was captured in Lower Segama, but died of internal injuries that same year.
1987 – Tenegang, male, was captured, but died at the Sepilok Rhino Breeding Centre in 1992.
1988 – Lokan, male, was captured, but eventually died in a pit trap that same year.
1989 – Lun Parai, female, was captured and successfully mated, but no pregnancy occurred. She died in Sepilok in 2000.
1991 – Tekala, male, was captured, but died following a tetanus infection in Sepilok in 1997.
1992 – Sidom, male, was captured, but died in Sepilok in 1997 with no success in mating.
1993 – Bulud, male, was captured and retained at the Tabin Wildlife Reserve in Lahad Datu but escaped not long after. However, he was sighted once in 1995 not far from Tabin.
1993 – Tanjung, male, was captured and retained in Sepilok, but died after a tree branch fell on it in 2006.
1995 – Malbumi, male, was captured, but died in Sepilok in 1997.
Three of Malaysia’s endangered large mammal species are experiencing contrasting futures.
Populations of the Sumatran rhino (Dicerorhinus sumatrensis) have dwindled to critically low numbers in Peninsular Malaysia (current estimates need to be revised) and the state of Sabah (less than 40 individuals estimated). In the latter region, a bold intervention involving the translocation of isolated rhinos is being developed to concentrate them into a protected area to improve reproduction success rates.
For the Asian elephant (Elephas maximus), recently established baselines for Peninsular Malaysia (0.09 elephants/km2 estimated from one site) and Sabah (between 0.56 and 2.15 elephants/km2 estimated from four sites) seem to indicate globally significant populations based on dung count surveys. Similar surveys are required to monitor elephant population trends at these sites and to determine baselines elsewhere.
The population status of the Malayan tiger (Panthera tigris jacksoni) in Peninsular Malaysia, however, remains uncertain as only a couple of scientifically defensible camera-trapping surveys (1.66 and 2.59 tigers/100 km2 estimated from two sites) have been conducted to date. As conservation resources are limited, it may be prudent to focus tiger monitoring and protection efforts in priority areas identified by the National Tiger Action Plan for Malaysia. Apart from reviewing the conservation status of rhinos, elephants and tigers and threats facing them, we highlight existing and novel conservation initiatives, policies and frameworks that can help secure the long-term future of these iconic species in Malaysia.
The above is an ABSTRACT of an article published online in the scientific journal Biodiversity Conservation on January 23 2010.
The authors of this orginal paper are as follows: Reuben Clements • Darmaraj Mark Rayan • Abdul Wahab Ahmad Zafir • Arun Venkataraman • Raymond Alfred • Junaidi Payne • Laurentius Ambu • Dionysius Shankar Kumar Sharma.
To read the whole article, download it HERE.
The Center for Conservation and Research of Endangered Wildife (CREW) which is based at the Cincinnati Zoo and Botanical Gardens is playing a central role in the mission to prevent the extinction of the Sumatran rhino.
Emi became an icon of rhino conservation when she became the first rhino to give birth in captivity in over 100 years. She gave birth to three calves before she passed away in 2009.
Through their research, CREW scientists have become world experts on the reproductive physiology of Sumatran rhinos. In an effort to increase animal numbers and improve genetic diversity, CREW uses science and technology to achieve numerous reproductive breakthroughs in these highly endangered Asian rhinos.
The Sumatran rhinoceros is one of the most endangered animals on earth with fewer than 270 individuals distributed throughout fragmented rainforests of South East Asia. A captive breeding program was formally established for this species in 1984, but efforts to propagate these rhinos in captivity failed.
In 1997, CREW scientists initiated research using endocrinology and ultrasonography to learn about the reproductive physiology of the species. As a result, scientific breakthroughs led to the first Sumatran rhino calf bred and born in captivity in 112 years at the Cincinnati Zoo on Sept. 13, 2001.
Since the birth of that first calf, two additional calves have been produced. This series of successful births clearly demonstrates how productive a captive breeding program can be when it incorporates good science, veterinary care, animal husbandry and intensive management. The Cincinnati Zoo remains the only place in the world breeding this species successfully in captivity.
In addition to its leadership role in the Sumatran rhino captive breeding program, CREW partners with other conservation organizations (Rhino Global Partnerships) to protect Sumatran rhinos in the wild by helping to support Rhino Protection Units (RPUs). These RPUs are trained to protect the rhinos from poachers, the greatest threat to the species. Furthermore, financial support and staff expertise are provided to facilitate the captive breeding program on Sumatra. The goal of the programme is to keep the rhinos safe in the wild and to establish a successful international captive breeding program for the Sumatran rhinoceros.
The return of a now adult Andalas to Sumatra in November 2007 was a significant and emotional milestone for the CREW team. It was the fruition of years of dedicated struggle marked as much by frustration and disappointment as by success and mini-miracles.
When Dr. Terri Roth, the Director of CREW visited the Cincinnati Zoo’s first-born Sumatran rhino calf, Andalas, in his new home at the Sumatran Rhino Sanctuary (SRS) on Sumatra, she was delighted to find a rhino that is thriving in his tropical homeland. Weighing in at 770 kg, Andalas is now the largest rhino at the reserve and is bigger than his father Ipuh (at the Cincinnati Zoo). Andalas’s neck has thickened, and his interest in the female rhinos has become apparent, suggesting he may soon be breeding.
Despite all of these changes, Andalas has maintained his childhood love of people and the attention they give him. He is the most well behaved rhino in the reserve for blood collection, foot exams, ultrasound exams and many other hands-on procedures that help the staff maintain his excellent health. Andalas has never been sick or seriously injured and he has adapted to the new forest environment, the change in diet and exposure to many new insects that he hadn’t encountered in the US, without a hitch. We can be reassured that Andalas is clearly benefiting from the outstanding care and wonderful home the Sumatran Rhino Sanctuary provides and await exciting news of successful matings and future offspring!
See how Andalas is adapting to his new home and caregivers in this video footage!
Special thanks to the Cincinnati Zoo and Botanical Garden for the use of photos and videos
CINCINNATI, OH (September 6, 2009) – “Emi”, the world’s most famous endangered Sumatran rhino, passed away yesterday morning at the age of 21 at her home at the Cincinnati Zoo & Botanical Garden. The female Sumatran rhino lived at the Cincinnati Zoo for the past 14 years and produced three calves, Andalas (2001), Suci (2004) and Harapan (2007). In 2001, years of breakthrough research by scientists at the Zoo’s Lindner Center for Conservation and Research of Endangered Wildlife (CREW) resulted in the first captive birth of a Sumatran rhino since the 19th century.
“No animal has been more beloved than Emi in the 134 year history of the Cincinnati Zoo,” said Thane Maynard, Director of the Cincinnati Zoo & Botanical Garden. “She is the most famous rhino in the world and has led the way in the effort to establish a successful captive breeding program for this critically endangered animal. My fondest hope is that we now build on Emi’s legacy and increase our efforts tenfold to continue the global effort to save the Sumatran rhino.”
In March, the Zoo’s Animal Care Staff first noticed that Emi’s appetite was inconsistent; she had less energy and had lost some weight. Concerned Zoo Veterinarians performed a complete physical exam with blood work in early April. Her examination was unremarkable, but blood work indicated some subtle changes in her liver function. Veterinary staff continued to conduct a battery of diagnostic tests and consulted with numerous rhino experts worldwide in an attempt to determine a cause for her clinical signs. In May, Emi’s attitude improved, her appetite picked up, and she gained some weight back. However, overall, her appetite and attitude had been inconsistent and despite various treatments administered, her condition continued to deteriorate. On the day of her death a thorough post mortem exam was performed. Tissue samples will be submitted to a veterinary pathologist to help determine a cause of death.
“It is always devastating when an animal reaches the end of its life, especially those that are so special, but Emi could not have been in better hands all these years,” said Dr. Terri Roth, Director of the Cincinnati Zoo’s CREW. Our Veterinary staff has been working tirelessly for months to identify the source of Emi’s illness, and our keeper staff has done everything possible to support Emi on a daily basis during our struggle to save this rhino.”
A decade ago, little was known about caring for the critically endangered Sumatran rhinos in captivity, let alone their mating habits and reproductive cycles. But Cincinnati Zoo staff, led by Dr. Terri Roth, have relied on the use of ultrasound, close monitoring of hormone levels and years of patient observation and trial-and-error to learn how to successfully breed the Sumatran rhinos.
Emi’s first calf, Andalas, was the first Sumatran rhino bred and born in captivity in 112 years.
Repeating that success with the birth of a second calf, Suci, in 2004, was absolutely essential to validate the scientific methods developed at the Cincinnati Zoo and for the continued progress of the captive breeding program. In 2007, Emi gave birth to an unprecedented third calf, Harapan, again raising hopes among conservationists that the captive breeding could play an important role in the species’ recovery.
Andalas, now almost 8 years of age, was transported to the Way Kambas Sumatran Rhino Sanctuary in Indonesia in 2007 to take part in an international breeding program. The Sanctuary has been in close consultation with the Cincinnati Zoo. The methodology that has proven successful at the Cincinnati Zoo is being adapted to the conditions at the Sanctuary. With the arrival of Andalas, the options for reproduction have increased dramatically and the Sanctuary is poised for success. Rhino experts are hopeful that he will successfully breed with the females at the Sanctuary to achieve pregnancies and offspring.
The Cincinnati Zoo is the only place in the world to successfully breed this critically endangered species in captivity. Two out of the three Sumatran rhinos living in the United States, five-year-old Suci and her father, Ipuh, reside at the Cincinnati Zoo. Harapan moved to the White Oak Conservation Center in Yulee, Florida in 2008. Emi and Ipuh were both sent to the U.S. by the Indonesian government as part of a cooperative agreement developed between Indonesia and four U.S. zoos (Cincinnati, Bronx, Los Angeles and San Diego).
Considered the most endangered of all rhino species and perhaps the most endangered mammal species on earth, it is estimated that at least 60 percent of the Sumatran rhino population has been lost in the last two decades. The primary cause is conversion of rhino habitat for agriculture, even in some national parks, and poaching for its horn which some Asian cultures believe contains medicinal properties. Today, there are only nine Sumatran rhinos living in captivity worldwide and fewer than 200 animals exist in isolated pockets of Sabah, Malaysia and the island of Sumatra in Indonesia. Sumatran rhinos can live 35-40 years.
The Cincinnati Zoo is working closely with the Indonesian Ministry of Forestry, the Indonesian Rhino Foundation, the IUCN Asian Rhino Specialist Group and the International Rhino Foundation, to protect this species in the wild, and also propagate Sumatran rhinos in captivity. Both approaches will be necessary to secure the future of this critically endangered species for future generations.
In Loving Memory of Emi: A dedication to Emi written by Dr Terri Roth of the Cincinnati Zoo
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.
Story by RHISHJA LARSON
Published on www.ecolocalizer.com, August 18th, 2009
Tam can roam in the knowledge that he is safe from poachers in the rhino sanctuary.
An initiative to transport lone Borneo rhinos to a secure central location – where they can interact with other rhinos – could mean hope for this extremely rare subspecies.
Tabin Wildlife Reserve located in Sabah, Malaysia is the last home of the Bornean rhino (Dicerorhinus sumatrensis harrissoni), a distinct subspecies of the Sumatran rhino (Dicerorhinus sumatrensis sumatrensis). It is estimated that fewer than 50 Bornean rhinos are still surviving in Sabah. Borneo rhinos are said to be even smaller than Sumatran rhinos, with some standing only three feet tall at the shoulder. Both species are covered with bristly hair that rubs down as they mature and create “tunnels” by crashing through the rainforest.
Sadly, some of these rhinos are living alone in fragmented pockets of forest, cut off from other rhino populations, where they have no hope of meeting another of their kind – and the isolation of these animals could lead to their extinction.
In a recent article in the Star (Malaysia), Junaidi Payne of WWF and Borneo Rhinoceros Alliance (Bora) says that these rhinos are likely to die out completely unless there is some active intervention.
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. 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.
An intervention to save Borneo rhinos
Fortunately, some human intervention has arrived: Plans have been approved to create the 4,500ha Borneo Rhinoceros Sanctuary (BRS) within Tabin Wildlife Reserve. Individual rhinos will be brought in from their fragmented locations in hopes that roaming free together in the sanctuary will entice them to breed.
The Borneo Rhinoceros Sanctuary (BRS) is new hope for these small rhinos. The plan is not to round up every wild rhino in Sabah, but rather to locate the isolated rhinos and transport them to a central location where they can roam and interact naturally with other rhinos in the sanctuary.
This will be a “hands-off” breeding program, in contrast to a failed captive breeding program in Malaysia in which tragically, most of the rhinos died. By translocating these rhinos to the BRS, they are given a chance to contribute to the survival of the species – something they certainly cannot do alone.
As part of the initiative, the sanctuary will be encircled by an electric fence – the first project of its kind to include a large fenced area in a tropical rainforest.
The rhino sanctuary’s first resident
The Borneo Rhino Sanctuary even has its first resident – Tam, a male rhino found in a palm oil plantation last year. Because Tam did not want to return to the forest on his own, WWF’s Payne suspects the rhino had previously been injured by a trap set by poachers.
Tam is currently living in a fenced 2,500ha area until the sanctuary is ready. He receives regular medical check-ups from volunteers in a makeshift paddock within his temporary home.
Once the BRS is ready, Tam will be moved. The sanctuary is expected to be open in year. Wildlife experts are planning to capture four or five additional rhinos over the next few years, and introduce them to the sanctuary. It is not expected that the rhinos will begin breeding immediately, and it could be ten years before the success of the project can be determined.
Borneo rhinos in the future
The ultimate goal of the BRS is to ensure the long-term survival of these rhinos. Payne points out that without a conservation “intervention”, the Borneo rhino will become extinct in our lifetime.
The BRS is a joint initiative between the Sime Darby Foundation and the Sabah Government. 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.
Here’s to the future success of the Borneo Rhinoceros Sanctuary!
The Rhino Protection Unit based in Tabin Wildlife Reserve performs a number of vital activities that include monitoring the movement and behaviour of rhinos within the area, and keeping a vigilant look out for poachers and others that would seek to harm them. Tracking activities which include measuring footprints, monitoring wallows and salt licks is slowly helping to build up a database of the rhinos of Tabin. Members of the RPU are young men and women that are very capable in the forest. They are able to carry heavy packs and to find their way around without the use of specialised equipment. Most have a love for the outdoors and a special interest and curiousity about rhinos.
The addition of Tam as the resident rhino bachelor contributes a different and yet joyful dimension to RPU work – that is the feeding and care of this charming individual. Some of the daily activities of the RPU members are captured in this Photo Gallery.
Click on a picture to view slideshow, and click again to return to the normal screen.
The little-known and smallest member of the rhinoceros family, the Sumatran rhinoceros, is critically endangered. Today between 30 and 100 are isolated on the islands of Sumatra and Borneo in Southeast Asia. In a new study, researchers urge conservationists to translocate the two island groups–representing two subspecies of the Sumatran rhino–and to create a cell bank to preserve the genetic diversity uncovered by this work.
“It is heartbreaking as a geneticist to recommend that two subspecies, which are probably as different as humans were from the Neanderthals, should be combined into a single conservation unit,” said Al Roca, a professor of animal sciences in the College of Agricultural, Consumer and Environmental Sciences and the Carl R. Woese Institute for Genomic Biology at the University of Illinois.
The Sumatran rhino is the smallest of the remaining rhino species, but it is critically endangered — with 100 or fewer left in the wild today. Photo credit: Terri Roth
Published in the Journal of Heredity, the study analyzed 13 samples taken from zoos and the wild as well as 26 museum specimens to reveal differences in the species’ mitochondrial DNA, the small proportion of the genome that is passed down only from mothers to their offspring.
The study exposed 17 distinct mitochondrial haplotypes, a group of genes inherited from one parent, that can be used to trace a species’ migrations and distribution across thousands of years. The mitochondrial DNA also confirmed the classification of three subspecies of Sumatran rhinos: D. s. lasiotis (likely extinct), D. s. harrissoni, and D. s. sumatrensis.
In the wild, Sumatran Rhinos are solitary creatures, only coming together to breed. In such few numbers, it is increasingly difficult for them to find each other in their mountainous habitat. What’s more, if they are not able to mate, females develop reproductive diseases that prevent them from successfully breeding.
“My strongest recommendation is that they are brought into breeding centers as soon as possible because they aren’t going to survive in the wild in such low numbers,” Roca said. “A population of 10 individuals loses 5 percent of their genetic diversity each generation, which they cannot spare.”
“Unfortunately, at this point, we have to act quickly and risk losing unique genetic lineages in order to save a whole species,” said first author Jessica Brandt, now a professor of biology at Marian University.
This genetic erosion can be prevented, or slowed, by combining the remaining rhinos to create a larger population. A century of captive breeding efforts have yielded few babies, but recent successes suggest ex situ breeding facilities could help save this species from the brink of extinction–the result of poaching and habitat loss due to legal and illegal logging for desirable hardwoods.
To ensure the long-term genetic health of the species, the authors implore conservationists to preserve the genomes of every living Sumatran rhino. In the future, preserved cell lines could be used to create artificial gametes, to reverse the effects of inbreeding and harmful mutations.
“We may one day be able to use stored cells to bring back what was once lost, reversing the effects of inbreeding, drift, and our own folly,” Roca said. “Because they are at such low numbers, every single living Sumatran rhino is genetically very valuable, and preserving cells with genetic material from each surviving individual is of paramount importance.”
Read the original article here.
This work was made possible by the United State Fish and Wildlife Service Rhinoceros and Tiger Conservation Fund, the International Rhino Foundation, the World Wildlife Fund, the National Science and Engineering Research Council (Canada), and ACES Office of International Program.
The paper “Genetic structure and diversity among historic and modern populations of the Sumatran rhinoceros (Dicerorhinus sumatrensis)” is published by the Journal of Heredity(doi.org/10.1093/jhered/esy019).
Co-authors also include Peter J. Van Coeverden de Groot (Queen’s University in Canada), Kelsey E. Witt (University of Illinois), Paige K. Engelbrektsson (National Museum of Natural History), Kristofer M. Helgen (University of Adelaide), Ripan S. Malhi (University of Illinois), and Oliver A. Ryder (Institute of Conservation Research, San Diego Zoo).
The Carl R. Woese Institute for Genomic Biology research facility at the University of Illinois is dedicated to transformative research and technology in life sciences using team-based strategies to tackle grand societal challenges.
1 Mar 2015, Kota Kinabalu: The Sumatran rhino once browsed the forests in India, Bangladesh, Myanmar, Laos, Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia, and China. By the mid-20th century, its range and population has drastically shrunk due to forest habitat loss and killing for its horn. The demand for rhino horn stems from the common yet misguided belief that it harbours medicinal properties.
In Malaysia, a disturbing combination of factors has led to its dwindling population and near-extinction: the lack of knowledge on rhino population and reproduction status in the wild, poor husbandry practices in captive centres, the conservation focus being solely on protecting rhinos in the wild which has not been effective, and at the same time not developing an effective captive breeding population as a parallel effort.
Some wildlife researchers estimate that there are less than 100 Sumatran rhinos left in the world and current populations are largely confined to Indonesia, with very few wild rhinos possibly remaining in Sabah. In Peninsular Malaysia, the species is likely to be totally extinct although this terrible event has gone unrecognized. Rhino biologists regard the species as functionally extinct in all of Borneo as the few individuals remaining are insufficient to provide hope of survival of the species.
Over the last thirty years, more Sumatran rhinos have died than have been born, both in the wild and in captivity. Between 1984 and 1995, a total of 22 Sumatran rhinos were captured in Peninsular Malaysia and Sabah for a captive breeding project. Except for one which was already pregnant when captured, none bred while in captivity, and all have since died. It is clear that protecting wild populations has failed, and that natural breeding in captivity results in too few births to be a viable strategy.
What remain of the Malaysian population are a male named Tam and two females named Puntung and Iman. Captured from the wild in Sabah from 2008 to 2014, the trio currently resides in the Borneo Rhino Sanctuary (BRS) in Tabin Wildlife Reserve, under the care of Borneo Rhino Alliance (BORA), a non-governmental organization developed for this purpose under the guidance 0f Sabah Wildlife Department. Unfortunately, both Puntung and Iman have severe reproductive tract pathology, possibly due to having gone un-bred in the wild for a long time. However both are still producing oocytes, which are cells that form eggs which then can be fertilized by sperm. Rather than throwing in the towel and abandoning the species to extinction, Sabah Wildlife Department and BORA with its donor Sime Darby Foundation are collaborating with Leibniz Institute for Zoo and Wildlife Research (IZW) in Germany and professor Cesare Galli and his wife of Avantea laboratories in Italy to produce Sumatran rhino embryos in the laboratory using Advanced Reproductive Techniques (ART).
It appears that ART represents the best chance of growing the captive population of Sumatran rhinos. Compared to classical artificial insemination technique which pumps millions of sperm into the uterus of a rhino, a technique already well-established for domestic animals called intracellular sperm injection maximizes the chance of fertilization of the egg by injecting only one viable sperm into a single oocyte in a laboratory condition. The resulting embryo is then implanted into a female rhino for development of the foetus over a normal pregnancy period.
According to Datuk Dr Junaidi Payne, BORA’s Executive Director, “All remaining Sumatran rhinos should be brought together in two or three closely-managed captive care facilities, where the use of their gametes can be maximised. At BRS, we are racing against time to harvest gametes from the rhinos here for use in in-vitro fertilisation, as well as preserving frozen gametes and stem cell lines within the 2014-2017 window”. He added, “The programme which we are pursuing for this period requires a few millions of ringgit to run, with Sime Darby Foundation being the primary financial supporter, while the specialist veterinary team from IZW with associated colleagues from Avantea laboratories, Stanley Manne Children’s Research Institute and San Diego Frozen Zoo are providing Sabah with the necessary ART expertise,” he added.
“Through ART, each rhino can be maximised to help save its species,” said William Baya, Director of Sabah Wildlife Department. He continued, “With the species on the brink of extinction, SWD is committed to support a global Sumatran rhino captive breeding programme using ART as it is the best chance we have to save this species. We are ready in principle to support Indonesia if requested”.
Dato’ Dr Dionysius Sharma, the CEO and Executive Director of WWF-Malaysia, has this to say to sceptics of the Sumatran rhino’s ART programme:
“WWF-Malaysia believes in using innovative solutions to resurrect the critically endangered Sumatran rhino population. More than a century ago, moving critically endangered African rhinos on to fenced private land, as well as captive breeding of the European bison were necessary and successful elements in saving these species from extinction and we hope to have the same success for the Sumatran rhino with ART,” he commented.
With time clearly running out, it is paramount that remaining wild rhinos are captured for ART as maximising births in captivity seems to now be the only viable way to save this 20 million-year-old mammal species from extinction.
Read the original article on WWF Malaysia’s website.
CINCINNATI, OH (September 6, 2009) – “Emi”, the world’s most famous endangered Sumatran rhino, passed away yesterday morning at the age of 21 at her home at the Cincinnati Zoo & Botanical Garden. The female Sumatran rhino lived at the Cincinnati Zoo for the past 14 years and produced three calves, Andalas (2001), Suci (2004) and Harapan (2007). In 2001, years of breakthrough research by scientists at the Zoo’s Lindner Center for Conservation and Research of Endangered Wildlife (CREW) resulted in the first captive birth of a Sumatran rhino since the 19th century.
“No animal has been more beloved than Emi in the 134 year history of the Cincinnati Zoo,” said Thane Maynard, Director of the Cincinnati Zoo & Botanical Garden. “She is the most famous rhino in the world and has led the way in the effort to establish a successful captive breeding program for this critically endangered animal. My fondest hope is that we now build on Emi’s legacy and increase our efforts tenfold to continue the global effort to save the Sumatran rhino.”
In March, the Zoo’s Animal Care Staff first noticed that Emi’s appetite was inconsistent; she had less energy and had lost some weight. Concerned Zoo Veterinarians performed a complete physical exam with blood work in early April. Her examination was unremarkable, but blood work indicated some subtle changes in her liver function. Veterinary staff continued to conduct a battery of diagnostic tests and consulted with numerous rhino experts worldwide in an attempt to determine a cause for her clinical signs. In May, Emi’s attitude improved, her appetite picked up, and she gained some weight back. However, overall, her appetite and attitude had been inconsistent and despite various treatments administered, her condition continued to deteriorate. On the day of her death a thorough post mortem exam was performed. Tissue samples will be submitted to a veterinary pathologist to help determine a cause of death.
“It is always devastating when an animal reaches the end of its life, especially those that are so special, but Emi could not have been in better hands all these years,” said Dr. Terri Roth, Director of the Cincinnati Zoo’s CREW. Our Veterinary staff has been working tirelessly for months to identify the source of Emi’s illness, and our keeper staff has done everything possible to support Emi on a daily basis during our struggle to save this rhino.”
A decade ago, little was known about caring for the critically endangered Sumatran rhinos in captivity, let alone their mating habits and reproductive cycles. But Cincinnati Zoo staff, led by Dr. Terri Roth, have relied on the use of ultrasound, close monitoring of hormone levels and years of patient observation and trial-and-error to learn how to successfully breed the Sumatran rhinos.
Emi’s first calf, Andalas, was the first Sumatran rhino bred and born in captivity in 112 years.
Repeating that success with the birth of a second calf, Suci, in 2004, was absolutely essential to validate the scientific methods developed at the Cincinnati Zoo and for the continued progress of the captive breeding program. In 2007, Emi gave birth to an unprecedented third calf, Harapan, again raising hopes among conservationists that the captive breeding could play an important role in the species’ recovery.
Andalas, now almost 8 years of age, was transported to the Way Kambas Sumatran Rhino Sanctuary in Indonesia in 2007 to take part in an international breeding program. The Sanctuary has been in close consultation with the Cincinnati Zoo. The methodology that has proven successful at the Cincinnati Zoo is being adapted to the conditions at the Sanctuary. With the arrival of Andalas, the options for reproduction have increased dramatically and the Sanctuary is poised for success. Rhino experts are hopeful that he will successfully breed with the females at the Sanctuary to achieve pregnancies and offspring.
The Cincinnati Zoo is the only place in the world to successfully breed this critically endangered species in captivity. Two out of the three Sumatran rhinos living in the United States, five-year-old Suci and her father, Ipuh, reside at the Cincinnati Zoo. Harapan moved to the White Oak Conservation Center in Yulee, Florida in 2008. Emi and Ipuh were both sent to the U.S. by the Indonesian government as part of a cooperative agreement developed between Indonesia and four U.S. zoos (Cincinnati, Bronx, Los Angeles and San Diego).
Considered the most endangered of all rhino species and perhaps the most endangered mammal species on earth, it is estimated that at least 60 percent of the Sumatran rhino population has been lost in the last two decades. The primary cause is conversion of rhino habitat for agriculture, even in some national parks, and poaching for its horn which some Asian cultures believe contains medicinal properties. Today, there are only nine Sumatran rhinos living in captivity worldwide and fewer than 200 animals exist in isolated pockets of Sabah, Malaysia and the island of Sumatra in Indonesia. Sumatran rhinos can live 35-40 years.
The Cincinnati Zoo is working closely with the Indonesian Ministry of Forestry, the Indonesian Rhino Foundation, the IUCN Asian Rhino Specialist Group and the International Rhino Foundation, to protect this species in the wild, and also propagate Sumatran rhinos in captivity. Both approaches will be necessary to secure the future of this critically endangered species for future generations.
In Loving Memory of Emi: A dedication to Emi written by Dr Terri Roth of the Cincinnati Zoo
The Star, Tuesday February 6, 2007
Though big in size, rhinos are succumbing to pressures inflicted by a much smaller creature – man.
Story by TAN CHENG LI
HE was Sabah’s last hope to boost the dwindling numbers of Sumatran rhinos. But in a tragic event, Tanjung, the only remaining captive male rhino in the state, was killed last August by a falling tree branch. A storm the previous day had inflicted much damage to the Orang Utan Rehabilitation Centre in Sepilok, Sandakan, where the breeding centre is located.
With the death of 15-year-old Tanjung, only the 25-year-old female Gelugob remains. The captive breeding programme in Sabah appears doomed, much like the one at Sungai Dusun, Selangor, which ended abruptly in late 2003 when its whole population of five rhinos was wiped out over a span of 18 days. The cause of death remains disputed between bacterial and parasitic infections.
What will happen to the Sepilok breeding centre and Gelugob is uncertain. Until press time, Sabah Wildlife Department could not be reached for clarification. But trapping another wild male to restock the centre is unlikely to get much public or even scientific support, going by the poor track record of rhinos in captivity.
Desperate situation: Sumatran rhinos are shy and reclusive animals.
Captive breeding of Sumatran rhinos has seen little success globally, triggering doubts over the viability of the expensive endeavour.
In the 1980s, some 40 rhinos were trapped from threatened sites in Malaysia and Sumatra, and sent to zoos worldwide to breed but only two calves have been captive-born so far, both at Cincinnati Zoo in the United States. Many of the captive rhinos did not fare well and eventually succumbed to disease and illness.
At Sepilok, the rhinos mated and Gelugob conceived once but aborted after three months.
If the Sepilok breeding programme is continued, Dr Nan Schaffer, an expert in the physiology of rhino reproduction, says the facility, now in disrepair, will need to be enlarged and improved upon.
“It will take several millions to develop the facility to meet standards and bring in expertise as the animals require constant care and monitoring,” says the Chicago-based veterinarian who has worked on rhino breeding in Sabah on numerous occasions since 1990. The conservation group which she founded, SOS Rhino, has been assisting in Sepilok by assessing the health and reproductive integrity of the rhinos, guiding management and husbandry, and conducting research.
Protect in the wild
Dr Nan Schaffer: ‘The status of the animal is critical. To save the species, you need to engage everyone.
With uncertainties shrouding the breeding programme, SOS Rhino programme officer Dr M.S. Thayaparan says efforts now centre on protecting wild rhinos, particularly since the discovery of two juvenile rhino footprints at Tabin Wildlife Reserve meant that they are reproducing.
“If we can better protect their natural environment, they can continue breeding naturally and that would be the best thing.”
Critically endangered, Sumatran rhinos desperately need help. Their future is bleak for their habitat has dwindled, they are shot for their horns and increasing isolation hinders their breeding. Some 300 are all that remain of the species in the only two places where they occur, Sumatra and Malaysia.
The species’ situation in Malaysia is especially desperate – the peninsula has only 70 rhinos left and Sabah, 30 to 40. Schaffer says the rhino in Sabah is even more endangered as it is a subspecies, Dicerorhinus sumatrensis harrissoni, that is found nowhere else since populations in Sarawak and Kalimantan have been wiped out.
For Schaffer, directing conservation efforts on rhinos make sense since they are a “flagship species” – protect them and you will protect other species in the animal kingdom as well.
SOS Rhino’s work in Sabah, funded mainly by foreign zoos and conservation groups, includes five rhino patrol units with rangers to guard the 48,000ha Tabin reserve against poachers and gather data on rhino numbers, food sources and threats.
While SOS Rhino covers Tabin, the other group championing for rhino preservation in Sabah, WWF, focuses on the Danum Valley Conservation Area. Both sites are Sabah’s last rhino strongholds.
Risks persist
The rhinos in Danum Valley, meanwhile, are in a precarious state. The reserve is enveloped by the logging compartments of Malua and Ulu Segama forests and rhinos have been found to inhabit both the protected area and those earmarked for logging.
“Our surveys show Malua and Ulu Segama to be key rhino habitats,” says WWF project manager Raymond Alfred. “Logging, even if using reduced impact techniques, should not be allowed as it can destroy salt licks and mud volcanoes which wildlife such as pigs, rhinos and elephants depend upon for certain minerals.”
He says a new logging road just 1.5km north of Danum Valley raises encroachment risks. Furthermore, boundaries are demarcated only on maps and not in the forest, so hunters issued with permits for Ulu Segama can claim ignorance after entering the reserve.
Under the RM5mil Honda-funded Rhino Rescue project, WWF has formed three rhino patrol units with 12 rangers each to guard and survey Danum Valley and the adjacent forest.
Surveys also show isolated rhino groups in pockets of forests too small to sustain the animals. To safeguard one of these scattered groups, Alfred says the state government will gazette a patch of stateland into a “forest corridor” to link the fragmented forest to Tabin.
A similar plan for another isolated rhino group outside Kulamba wildlife reserve, however, will require more talks as the proposed corridor sits on privately owned plantations.
WWF is embarking on a similar rhino conservation project in Belum forest reserve, Perak, which harbours some 10 rhinos. The five-year Honda-funded project will also see the formation of rhino patrol units to check on poachers and conduct rhino surveys.
A community programme initiated by SOS Rhino in Tabin, meanwhile, employs locals for the conservation project, encourages them to start tourism activities, fund students in wildlife conservation studies, and ropes in plantation owners to monitor encroachers, especially on land bordering the reserve.
“Our goal now is to get all stakeholders to step up and be involved,” says Schaffer.
“The status of the animal is critical. To save the species, you need to engage everyone … plantation operators, land owners, businesses, politicians, communities and scientists.
The Star, February 6, 2007
Story by TAN CHENG LI
CAPTIVE breeding of Sumatran rhinos holds much promise but has so far turned out to be a costly exercise with many false starts. The rhino enclosure at the Sepilok Orang Utan Sanctuary – attempts at getting captive rhinos to mate and reproduce in the 90s met with little success.
Because of their rarity, elusive nature and the harsh terrain of their habitat, little is known about the species’ biology, habitat needs and reproductive behaviour. This has stymied breeding efforts.
“Their reproduction and physiology differ from other species, which explains the low reproductive success. We had to go back to the drawing board and build up from the ground,” says Dr Nan Schaffer, who has worked with all five rhino species in the past 25 years.
In the early years of the captive breeding programme, many rhinos in American zoos died and only later did scientists learn that the animals survive on a wide variety of leaves, fruits and minerals found in natural salt licks. Of the seven Sumatran rhinos sent to the United States in the 1980s, only two are still alive.
Schaffer says scientists also discovered later on that rhinos seek shaded habitats and are almost never in the harsh sun.
The Sungai Dusun centre in Selangor, as it turned out, was not exactly a conducive breeding spot because trees were felled during the construction. The rhinos’ paddocks were also too small. Being solitary animals, Sumatran rhinos need large enclosures, unlike Indian rhinos which can be herded together.
Newer breeding facilities, such as the Sumatran Rhino Sanctuary at Way Kambas National Park in Sumatra, are better designed. The sanctuary sprawls over 100ha and each of the four rhinos there has a 10ha forested enclosure.
Over the years, breeders have employed various techniques, including those used to boost human fertility, to get caged rhinos to reproduce.
Shaffer was instrumental in the success of artificial insemination in the white rhinoceros and the birth of Andalas, the world’s first captive-born rhino.
After repeated failed pregnancies in the female adult rhino, Cincinnati Zoo staff sought Schaffer’s help. She advised them to use progesterone to help bring the pregnancy to term. It worked, resulting in the birth of Andalas in 2001.
Shaffer also developed a technique to extract sperm from male rhinos consistently, for artificial insemination.
The trick, she reveals, is to use an electrical probe to stimulate the rectum and spine, which then causes the rhino to ejaculate. “Yes, there is nothing romantic about it,” she quips.
Another hurdle in rhino breeding is that the animals will attack each other and must be kept apart except when the female is in oestrus and ready to mate. So keepers must monitor the animal’s behaviour and fertile periods to determine the right time to put them in the same enclosure for mating.
“It took us 20 years to understand all this. It was very frustrating as we had to learn and perfect many techniques,” says Schaffer.
“Breeding centres the world over contributed to the body of knowledge on keeping rhinos in captivity. Each facility developed a piece of the puzzle and it all came together in Cincinnati Zoo.
“Sepilok was the first place to successfully bring the animals together without them attacking each other. Without this knowledge, the Cincinnati Zoo births would not have happened.”
Cincinnati Zoo is the sole success story in rhino captive breeding. Andalas got a sister in 2004 and his mother Emi is expecting another male calf in April.
Why has the success of Cincinnati Zoo not been replicated? “Successful breeding depends on investment, expertise and motivation,” says Schaffer. “Cincinnati Zoo has a team of dedicated staff and a body of expertise (such as a reproductive expert and vet) not seen in any other breeding centres, and it was prepared to put in huge investments.”
Rhino scientists believe they have more or less perfected rhino breeding techniques but the problem now is this: only a few captive animals remain and most are old or have various ailments linked with long-term confinement. Many captive female rhinos have tumour growths in their reproductive tracts which interfere with pregnancies. Lack of breeding activity is believed to be the cause.
If captive breeding is to continue, healthy animals are needed.
After the deaths of the Sungai Dusun rhinos in 2003, there was a proposal to trap a female rhino from Peninsular Malaysia and send it to Cincinnati Zoo for breeding but the Department of Wildlife and National Parks withdrew its initial agreement on the project.
Now, hopes for another captive breeding success is pinned on the healthy and young stud Andalas. In mid-February, he will leave his home at Los Angeles Zoo for Way Kambas, to start his own family. It is a risky move – the journey to Sumatra will be a long and stressful, and for the first time, Andalas will be exposed to the wild tropical rainforest and with it, potentially dangerous foreign parasites.
But then again, it is a risk that has to be taken for back in LA Zoo, Andalas will never ever have a mate. At least in Sumatra, there is still a chance for him to help save his own kind.
Capturing Sumatran rhinos was one thing. Keeping them alive turned out to be another thing entirely.
An article by Jeremy Hance published in Mongabay by 24 SEPTEMBER 2018
An agreement to launch a captive breeding program was brokered in 1984. By 1985, key participants began pulling out, including the Malaysian state of Sabah.
Despite the setbacks, efforts to capture rhinos quickly got up and running. Keeping the animals healthy proved to be a much greater challenge.
By 1995, nearly half of the 40 rhinos caught were dead, and none of them had successfully bred in captivity.
This is the second article in the Mongabay four-part series “The Rhino Debacle.” Read Part One here.
No one knows when humans first encountered the Sumatran rhinoceros, the smallest, hairiest, most loquacious and arguably strangest of all living rhinos. But that initial face-to-face probably occurred some 60,000 or 70,000 years ago as humans first pushed their way across the Asian continent and reached what are today the forests of northeast India.
It probably didn’t go well for the rhino. Those early migrants must have been adept hunters to survive, and their first real interaction probably ended with rhino meat roasting over a fire.
Early human hunting of Sumatran rhinos isn’t speculation. Scientists have found their bones in the Niah and Madai caves in Borneo, leftovers from a Pleistocene hunt. A recent study also found that Sumatran rhino populations plummeted during the Pleistocene. While the researchers believe the decline was due to climate change and subsequent habitat loss, they also note hunting may have played a part. It’s hard to imagine it didn’t, given the role of human hunting in wiping out other megafauna worldwide. Whatever was responsible, by the end of the Pleistocene, only 500 to 1,300 Sumatran rhinos were left.
Nine thousand years later, a small group of humans were doing something very different from their forebears. They were trying to catch Sumatran rhinos — not to roast them over fires or chop off their horns for sham medicine, but to breed them in captivity. They hoped to ensure the survival of this ancient mammal that had split off from all other living rhinos a shocking 20 million plus years ago.
“The Sumatran rhino is in all essence, in all sense a living fossil. It’s been around relatively unchanged since the Oligocene period,” says Ed Maruska, director of Cincinnati Zoo from 1984 to 1994, when it ran a rhino captive-breeding program.
This means losing the Sumatran rhino cannot be compared to the potential extinction of any other rhino species, as it represents a distinct genus, evolutionarily cut off from all other living mammals by around 25 million years.
Things Start to Fall Apart
At the conclusion of a 1984 meeting in Singapore on Sumatran rhinos, conservationists had a bold, international, cooperative agreement that they hoped would establish a large and secure captive population for the species, ensuring it would never vanish from the face of the Earth — even if it vanished from the wild.
Teams in Peninsular Malaysia, the state of Sabah on Malaysian Borneo, and in Indonesia’s Sumatra Island would attempt the capture of so-called “doomed” rhinos, i.e. those left over in forests, often slated to be cleared, where they were unlikely to survive in the long term. These animals would then be split up into breeding pairs between Malaysia, Indonesia, two zoos in the U.K. and four in the U.S. The agreement included funding and technical assistance from the U.K. and U.S., and was predicated on the idea that decisions were always to be made with an eye toward what would be best for the species.
“There was a lot of optimism, hope and expectation in the early days that a captive propagation program … could be successfully developed,” said the plan’s architect, Tom Foose, in a 2000 Animal Planet documentary titled “The Last Rhino.” “We were reproducing three other species of rhinos in captivity and so there was every reason to expect we would be able to achieve the same kind of success with the Sumatran rhino.”
But this grand plan began to unravel with remarkable rapidity.
First, two of the zoos that had initially showed interest — Miami Zoo and the National Zoo in Washington, D.C. — dropped out due to the high costs.
Then things went sour in Sabah. In 1985, elections sent the ruling party, in power for nine years, out into the cold.
A rhino captured in Malaysia crated and loaded on a truck for transport. Within a few years of the 1984 meeting, Malaysia decided not to send rhinos to zoos in the U.S. or U.K. Image by Mohammed Khan bin Momin Khan.
“All the new ministers decided, ‘We don’t need to work with foreigners, we’re perfectly able to do things ourselves, we’ll save the rhino,’” says John Payne, who was with WWF-Malaysia at the time in Sabah, and now runs the Borneo Rhino Alliance (BORA).
Sabah’s Forestry Department had favored the plan and argued for preserving it. But once the news broke that Sabah would be sending a few pairs of rhinos abroad, several local NGOs protested, the public raised a fuss, and eventually the new government pulled out of the agreement.
“Sabah was the first to blink,” Payne says. “Basically, it was a disaster, right? It meant … all the previous discussions are a waste of time, at least as far as Sabah was concerned.”
Next, Peninsular Malaysia, which already had one rhino housed at Malacca Zoo, showed no interest in sending any of its rhinos to either the U.S. or U.K. At the time, experts estimated Peninsular Malaysia had 50 to 121 rhinos, though the real number was probably lower.
“I was in favor of sending our rhinos to the States,” says Mohammed Khan bin Momin Khan, at the time the director general of the Department of Wildlife and National Parks of Malaysia. “[But] the Malaysian public and many in the department were against [it]. They are still. The hue and cry was too great. They were wrong as the Americans were really good friends and very closely worked with me.”
This graph depicts the lifespan in captivity of Sumatran rhinos that ended up in facilities in Malaysia, according to their final place of residence. Of this group, the only rhino to give birth in captivity was Rima, who was pregnant when she was captured. Tam and Iman are still alive, and are currently the only Bornean rhinos in captivity. Image by Willie Shubert/Mongabay
The reluctance in both Sabah and Peninsular Malaysia to share rhinos meant that, in the end, U.S. and U.K. zoos could only depend on one population of rhinos: those from Sumatra. John Aspinall, who owned two zoos in the U.K., already had a deal with Indonesia. After losing access to Malaysia’s rhinos, the newly formed Sumatran Rhino Trust, based in the U.S., signed a similar agreement.
But who would get the first rhinos? There were four U.S. zoos with a stake in it, all clamoring for a chance.
The zoo directors did the only thing that seemed fair: they drew straws. Cincinnati got the longest, then the Bronx Zoo, then San Diego Zoo. Los Angeles Zoo drew the short straw.
“Warren Thomas [director of L.A. Zoo] was infuriated that we got the pair of animals and he didn’t,” Maruska says. “In fact, he called me on the phone. He said, ‘I want that female.’ I said, ‘No way.’ ‘Well, I want to breed rhino,’ he said. I said, ‘So do we and we will.’”
The first rhino arrived in the U.S. in November 1984, wintering in L.A. before heading on to Cincinnati.
The U.S. zoos hoped to get 20 to 25 rhinos; they ended up with seven.
Catching rhinos
Even as the cooperative plan unraveled, one thing progressed: catching rhinos.
On Peninsular Malaysia, Khan and his team caught two rhinos in 1985 and two more in 1986.
Led by mammal-capturing expert Tony Parkinson, teams in Sumatra caught their first rhino in Riau province in 1985, just 11 months after the meeting. The rhino, dubbed Torgamba, was a massive male who would survive an astounding 26 years in captivity, making his way to the U.K. in 1986 and eventually back to Sumatra.
Parkinson and his team caught five more rhinos in the wilds of Sumatra the next year, though one died during capture.
Sabah was far slower in capturing rhinos, in part due to its political changes. The first rhino in Sabah was caught in March of 1987. But it was injured in the trap and died at the scene.
“There was no expertise at all,” Payne says of the team put together to catch the first rhinos in Sabah, which had eschewed all international assistance and advice. “So, the first rhino died in a pit trap. It was sort of around that time that I lost interest and thought there was no point to continue.”
Payne would take a break from rhinos until he got involved again in 2007.
A transport crate prepared for one of the rhinos captured in Peninsular Malaysia. Image by Mohammed Khan bin Momin Khan.
A second rhino was caught nearly four months later; this one survived.
“We were scared as no one had seen [a] Sumatran rhino in the wild [for] more than a few minutes,” says Khan of the early days trapping the one-ton animals. “Capturing these animals will put them in great danger.”
Of the 40 captures from 1984 to 1995, three rhinos died due to injuries from the traps: two in Sabah and one in Sumatra. Khan didn’t lose a single rhino in a trap.
However, those rhinos that survived capture did not thrive in captivity. Even as more rhinos were being caught, the death toll was quickly mounting.
By Jan. 1, 1990, eight of the 26 captured animals were already lost — a mortality rate of 30 percent.
This graph depicts the lifespans in captivity of wild-caught rhinos held in facilities in Indonesia. Bina is the only survivor of the original capture program. She lives at the Sumatran Rhino Sanctuary in Way Kambas along with Rosa, Ratu and her two calves, and two male rhinos bred in captivity at the Cincinnati Zoo. Image by Willie Shubert/Mongabay.
Stacking mortalities
The “cause of death” column for the Sumatran rhinos caught between 1984 and 1995 makes for some grim reading: strangulation, hindgut obstruction, cancer, fallen branch, poor diet.
While conservationists could catch rhinos, they had a far harder time keeping them alive. In the wild, the species is estimated to have a lifespan of 35 to 40 years; on average, the animals caught during this period survived less than nine years in captivity.
There is only survivor left from this period alive today: Bina. Residing at the Sumatran Rhino Sanctuary (SRS) in Way Kambas National Park today, she’s been in captivity for 27 years. Conservationists are still trying to get her to breed.
But why did so many rhinos die? Experts point to several reasons. First, because conservationists were catching only so-called doomed rhinos, many of the rhinos caught were probably older and part of populations that had long been facing genetic decline and catastrophe.
“’Doomed rhinos’ tend to be the last dregs, right? The very last one, two or three before the [population] dies,” Payne says.
This graph illustrates the date of capture, and time and place of death, of the Sumatran rhinos that were captured in Indonesia and brought to the United States as part of captive breeding efforts. Ipuh (male) and Emi (female) were the only pair to successfully breed. Image by Willie Shubert/Mongabay.
Making matters worse, zoos and sanctuaries fed the rhinos all wrong in the beginning. They were accustomed to caring for black and white rhinos, grazing species that do well on hay, were ignorant of how to cater to the Sumatran rhino’s particular needs. “I think there likely was a sentiment that a rhino was a rhino was a rhino,” says Susie Ellis, the head of the International Rhino Foundation.
Keepers at first fed the Sumatran rhino as if it were a white rhino, a species not even in the same genus.
“San Diego immediately lost their animal due to … twisted gut syndrome,” Maruska says. “It’s the same thing that happens in horses when they’re overfed grain. They were feeding their animals buckets of grain.”
Maruska’s zoo, Cincinnati, faced the same issues. Paul Reinhart, the zoo’s Sumatran rhino keeper at the time, says the first rhino sent to the U.S., a female named Mahatu in 1989, “didn’t thrive here.” She died just three years after her arrival.
“We didn’t know much about the Sumatran rhino, not many people did,” Reinhart says. “We assumed you could keep them like Indian rhino and like black [rhinos], feed [them] high-quality alfalfa grain, browse … and that was not the case, not even remotely the case … The animals didn’t thrive in captivity until we logged on to feeding them large amounts of browse, which we got from San Diego and Florida.”
As tropical rainforest animals, Sumatran rhinos, it turned out, didn’t eat grasses, but leaves and branches whole. They tend to pull vegetation into their mouths, and just chomp away until it’s all gone.
Ipuh lived at the Cincinnati Zoo for 22 years until his death in 2013. His remains are still on display in Cincinnati. Photo courtesy of the Cincinnati Zoo.
In 1991, Ipuh, a male, arrived at Cincinnati Zoo. He was already looking wan, so Cincinnati Zoo called San Diego Zoo to ask for some “browse,” i.e. trimmings of ficus trees growing around the zoo.
Reinhart says that when the keeper hosed off the branches, Ipuh responded immediately: standing up and coming over to smell the fresh branches.
“It took him about a year and a half to really come back to where he needed to be,” Reinhart says.
Another issue was disease. The rhinos, probably older and genetically inbred, were dealing with cancer, eye problems, iron storage disease, parasites, and in some cases bacterial infections. In a 2013 paper, Abdul Hamid Ahmad, John Payne and Zainal Zahari Zainuddin argued that some of the mortalities to disease could have been avoided.
“Most egregious of all, basic hygiene was generally poor [in Malaysian facilities], with at least some Sumatran rhinos kept for long periods in facilities that lacked basic hygiene protocols and biosecurity measures, and lacked experienced veterinary care,” they wrote.
As an example, the paper noted that treated piped water was only brought into Malacca Zoo for the Sumatran rhinos after two animals had died.
“I think a lot of … rhinos died through bacterial infections that could have and should have been treated with antibiotics but never were,” Payne says.
There were also accidents. A female named Melintang accidently strangled herself in an improperly constructed fence after being gifted to Thailand. A male named Tanjung was killed by a fallen branch — something that could have happened in the forest as well. Another male, Bulud, escaped his captors after only four months; he was never caught again.
Sungai Dusun
The worst 18 days for Sumatran rhino conservation came in October and November 2003. Five rhinos, four females and one male, died at the Malaysian Sumatran Rhino Centre in Sungai Dusun.
A male rhino, Shah, had died there a year earlier, followed by a female, Rima, just that April. Then, on Oct. 28, Seputin, a female, was found dead. Eleven days later, Ara, the only male, died. The next day, a female named Panjang died. The last two females, Minah and Mas Merah, died the following week.
With them went the entire captive population in Peninsular Malaysia.
“It was most painful to watch the great sufferings leading to the deaths of these precious animals,” Khan says.
No one knows for certain what happened. But two competing theories have taken root. One: that the animals died of trypanosomiasis, a type of parasite spread by biting flies.
“I would say that we have a lot of evidence indicating they died of trypanosomiasis,” says Terri Roth, a rhino expert and head of CREW, a research facility at Cincinnati Zoo, who was co-author of a paper that laid out the evidence a year after the tragedy. Roth and others believe that nearby water buffalo, which often waded in a canal that ran adjacent to the center, may have been the source. Flies may have bitten the water buffalo and then bitten the rhinos as well.
The other theory is that the animals died of bacterial infections, such as E. coli and pneumonia. According to the paper by Ahmad, Payne and Zainuddin, trypanosomes probably only infected the animals after their immune systems had already been weakened by E. coli and pneumonia due to allegedly poor management at the facility. Otherwise, they argued, why didn’t trypanosomiasis kill these animals during the 18 years prior?
“The conclusion that trypanosomes were the cause of the [Sungai Dusun] deaths may have been reached erroneously, in order to allow parties involved to avoid responsibility for chronic poor hygiene in the facilities,” the paper concluded.
Officially, the cause of death has been listed as trypanosomiasis.
All but one female mated with a male at Sungai Dusun, notes Terri Roth who visited the facility and says the rhinos appeared to be well cared for. Image by Terri Roth.
“I visited the Sumatran Rhino Conservation Centre at Sungai Dusun several times,” Roth says. “In general, the facility was nice, the rhinos appeared healthy, well cared for and in good body condition.”
She says the staff had succeeded in mating the males with the females, but without a successful birth due to fertility problems.
“I believe Sungai Dusun has received much undeserved criticism due to its tragic ending,” she adds. “Sure, it was not perfect, but it was a decent facility where rhinos frequently mated.”
After the center lost all of its rhinos, Sungai Dusun switched to housing Asian tapirs. In 2010, seven tapirs died of E. coli and pneumonia.
Whatever, the cause of the tragedy at Sungai Dusun, it highlighted a salient point: housing too many endangered animals in one area is incredibly risky.
“That’s why we worry so much about something like that happening at the Sumatran Rhino Sanctuary [in Way Kambas] because those rhinos are close enough [in] proximity that if one gets sick with something like that, it could spread very quickly,” Roth says.
The fallout for Malaysia was swift and large.
“Tom [Foose] thought that we were sabotaged and withdrew the [U.S.] funds,” Khan says. “I crawled to find money and by 2010-2011 our rhinos were thought extinct.”
Where Did it All Go Wrong?
By 1995, the captive-breeding rhino program looked doomed. Forty animals had been caught — 12 from Peninsular Malaysia, 10 from Sabah and 18 from Sumatra. And a shocking 19, nearly half, were dead. And this was before the disaster at Sungai Dusun.
Exacerbating this failure, the program hadn’t produced even a single calf 11 years after the landmark meeting in Singapore — even though the entire goal of the program ostensibly was to create baby rhinos. In 1993, the Sumatran Rhino Trust, once such a promising endeavor, went belly-up.
Not only did the program look doomed, it looked like a conservation embarrassment.
Payne says he believes the original sin of the captive-breeding program was its commitment to only taking animals out of populations that were already destined to vanish because of either too few rhinos or impending logging and agriculture. This, he says, was at once politically expedient and a good cover against critics who argued rhinos shouldn’t be removed from the wild. But it also meant conservationists were removing rhinos that were more likely to be old, genetically inbred, and hadn’t seen another living rhino in ages.
“It was a fateful flaw right from the beginning to only catch doomed rhinos because it was all the trash, old, [reproductively] unfit ones that were then going to be captured,” Payne says.
Puntung, pictured here with veterinarian Zainal Zainuddin shortly after her capture in 2011, was euthanized in 2017. Suffering from cancer, she was estimated to be around 25 when she died. Image courtesy of BORA.
Many of the females caught already had or quickly developed reproductive issues, including uterine tumors, likely due to going without breeding for so long. Rhinos, even in large protected areas, had simply become too few to find each other, according to Payne.
“People assume the rhinos know where each other are, and they’re humping each other. Of course they don’t … They just live out their life there … without ever breeding,” he says.
Over time such tumors made the females totally infertile. The males, meanwhile, may have arrived already aged, with low sperm counts.
“You can’t have a successful breeding program if you don’t have reproductively viable animals,” says the International Rhino Foundation’s Ellis, noting that when the SRS in Way Kambas started in 1996 it didn’t have any breeding success until 2005, when it got a young female, Ratu, from the wild.
A bridge and crate used to transfer captured Sumatran rhinos during the original program in 1984. Image courtesy of Francesco Nardelli. Targeting such small populations for captive breeding also led to extreme gender imbalance in captivity. In Peninsular Malaysia, only two of the 11 adult rhinos caught were male. The situation was nearly the exact opposite in Sabah, where six males were caught (plus another two that died during the trapping), and only two females.
The trapping program in Sumatra was the only one that didn’t result in a gender imbalance: seven males to 10 females (not including one that died in the trap).
This gender imbalance was worsened by an unwillingness both to share the rhinos internationally or to combine subspecies. Had Sabah and Peninsular Malaysia been willing to mix their two different subspecies, they may have had more luck breeding, since Sabah had mostly males and Peninsular Malaysia mostly females.
Although the groups pledged cooperation and to do the best they could for the species, this didn’t always happen. For example, Malaysia, which had refused to send any rhinos to the U.K. or the U.S., sent one of its female rhinos as a gift to the king of Thailand in 1985. She died after one year, mateless, when she got caught in her fence at Bangkok’s Dusit Zoo and accidently strangled herself. Sometimes, a single rhino would linger for years at a facility without a mate.
Melintang was captured in 1985 in Peninsular Malaysia. She was then sent to Thailand as a gift to the nation’s king. She died less than a year and a half after her capture due to unintentional strangulation in the fenced enclosure at Dusit Zoo. The bars were not the right width apart. Image by Mohammed Khan bin Momin Khan.
The decision by both Sabah and Peninsular Malaysia meant that zoos in the U.S. and U.K. had, at best, only a couple of rhinos to attempt any captive breeding.
“We didn’t have enough animals to work with. We had a small handful of them, but we had to learn all of this from these few animals,” says Maruska from Cincinnati Zoo, the first institution to actually achieve a birth. “If we could have had our full limit of the 25 animals, the program would have been … more apt to be successful.”
At the same time, feeding the animals the wrong food and trying to overcome disease meant many animals didn’t survive long. Erong, a male calf caught in Peninsular Malaysia in 1984, was an extreme example.
“Full cream milk was given by a ranger and he was told to stop it,” Khan says. “Erong was so young and could not digest the milk. I believe it was the cause of death … We looked and shudder[ed] in great fear as it died in front of us.”
Erong, a male calf caught in Sumatra was given full cream milk by a ranger. He died shortly after. Image by Mohammed Khan bin Momin Khan.
Much of this, of course, isn’t exactly shocking, given so little was known about this species in the wild. But the situation was exacerbated by what Payne calls “unhealthy competition” among institutions and an unwillingness to share information — a problem that some sources say continues to plague conservation efforts today.
Maruska also says they waited too long.
“It’s the same thing they did with the California condor, they wait till there’s a small number of animals and then it’s the last, last ditch attempt to [breed the species]. Instead of looking ahead.”
In 1995, at the height of the program’s problems, a new paper hit like a bomb. Alan Rabinowitz’s now classic “Helping a Species Go Extinct: the Sumatran Rhino in Borneo” eviscerated the decade-long strategy. A hugely respected conservationist, Rabinowitz, then with the Wildlife Conservation Society, harshly criticized the approach to Sumatran rhinos, which he wrote focused “time, money and effort” on captive-breeding efforts over protection in the wild.
“In Sabah, the easiest, most palatable, and most visible steps … were taken first,” he wrote. Habitat was only protected when it was “not controversial” and “caused minimal interference with ongoing logging activities and agricultural development plans.”
In the paper, Rabinowitz disputed the idea that many of the rhino populations were already doomed, calling such research “removed from the real world.” Instead, Rabinowitz said successfully protecting the species required tackling the threats of habitat destruction and poaching via more protected areas and more boots on the ground.
“The implication that captive breeding can save the Sumatran rhino makes the failure of in situ conservation less serious. This, in turn, helps create a self-fulfilling prophecy that wild [populations] have a low probability of survival,” he wrote.
Conservationists relied on makeshift bridges to capture rhinos in remote areas. Critics argue that more should have been done to protect these habitats. Image courtesy of Francesco Nardelli.
In the paper, Rabinowitz pointed out that by 1995 we still didn’t know how many rhinos were actually left — a fact still true more than 20 years later.
“While some of the blame … must be placed on the Indonesian and Malaysian governments, the rest of it falls squarely in the lap of international funding and conservation organizations,” Rabinowitz wrote, saying that NGOs had refrained from calling for anything difficult in order to avoid “becoming an unwelcome guest.”
Basically, conservation NGOs had bent over backward to agricultural and logging interests, a fact that still often proves true today.
In May this year, shortly before his death in August, Rabinowitz told Mongabay that his opinion of that early program hadn’t changed. However, he said what had changed was the situation today, both in terms of captive-breeding success and rhino populations on the ground.
In 1995, the last rhino for the captive-breeding program was caught in Sabah. His name was Malbumi. He would be dead in less than 18 months. The cause? Uncertain.
Read the full article on Mongabay.
The untold story of two days in Singapore that launched a wildly ambitious, and calamitous, captive breeding program.
An article by BY JEREMY HANCE was published on Mongabay on 20 SEPTEMBER 2018
Part 1 of a four article series.
A 1984 agreement between zoos, conservationists and government officials marked the formal beginning of an international program that brought 40 Sumatran rhinos into captivity in an attempt to ward off extinction. Within 11 years, the program collapsed.
The program was long viewed as an epic failure due to high mortality rates and the lack of live births for over a decade; it also paved the way for later breeding successes that just may offer the Sumatran rhino hope for the future.
As conservationists mull a new plan to capture more rhinos, what lessons do past efforts offer?
It’s hardly the most likely place to meet a Sumatran rhino. But as you enter Zimmer Hall at the University of Cincinnati , deep in the heart of the Midwestern United States, there he is: Ipuh. A one-ton, taxidermed behemoth, a prehistoric relic who only passed away in 2013.
In life — well, really in death — he resembles a purple-hued, thick-skinned antediluvian hog: his horns have been shaved off; his thick, reddish fringe hair is nowhere to be seen. His expression could be called somber, even grim. But I’ve been fortunate to have met enough Sumatran rhinos in my life to know they are actually gentle, joyful, singing creatures. So I try not to take him too seriously as he rests between the vending machines and lounges for students.
Ipuh is not exactly famous. But he probably should be: Ipuh is the first Sumatran rhino bull to sire a calf in captivity in 112 years.
Born in the wilds of Sumatra, Ipuh is to-date the most prolific male breeder of his species in captivity. His taxidermed remains now reside at the University of Cincinnati. Image by Jeremy Hance for Mongabay.
The calf, a male named Andalas, was born in 2001, the direct and long-awaited result of a historic meeting 17 years earlier in Singapore. The meeting launched a global captive-breeding program for the species — a program that would meet with tragic failure and much folly until, finally, the first taste of success in Andalas. Four more calves have been born since.
But it’s a program with which conservationists are still struggling to reconcile: was it a poor strategy that ended in total failure, or has it given us a second chance to save the species?
Today, the Sumatran rhino is arguably the rarest large terrestrial mammal on the planet. Officially, experts say around 100 animals survive in the wild, but unofficially the number could be as low as 30. We have an additional nine rhinos in captivity, but only two of those have been proven to breed: a female named Ratu, and Andalas — yes, that first son of Ipuh and Emi, his wild-born bride.
Now, conservationists are mulling a new capture program to add new rhinos to the small pool of captive rhinos in a last-ditch effort to ensure the species survives the Anthropocene.
The 1984 Meeting
A 39-year-old Tom Foose, conservation coordinator for the Association of Zoos and Aquariums (AZA), arrived in Singapore in October 1984 with a bold new plan to save the Sumatran rhino from extinction. He’d already laid the groundwork with Sabah, one of Malaysia’s Bornean states, for a proposal to catch several Sumatran rhino pairs and split them between local facilities and several U.S. zoos, which would be footing the bill.
Now he just needed to convince a group of rhino experts and conservationists, brought together by the Asian Rhino Specialist Group of the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), that this was the best way forward.
“He’s really nerdy. He’s unfit, short-sighted, addicted to Coca-Cola, not a field person at all,” said John Payne, at the time a project manager for WWF-Malaysia and a representative of the Sabah Forestry Department. “He’s really the brains. He realized somehow … that the Sumatran rhino was going to go extinct. And the reason was that there were too few and they weren’t breeding. It was very clear to him then. So, he got a bee in his bonnet, right?”
An ocean away, someone else appears to have been harassed by the same bee. John Aspinall, an eccentric zoo owner from the U.K. who’d made his fortune as a bookie for the British upper class, had hatched a similar plan to capture wild rhinos and split them between the host country and the financier — in this case, Indonesia and Aspinall’s zoos in the U.K., respectively.
“Several of the personalities in human history were misunderstood, criticized or even condemned at first, to recognize only much later their geniality. I would place the conservationist John Aspinall among them,” Francesco Nardelli, the executive director of the Sumatran Rhino Project, said of the man he worked with for 12 years. “A man of substance.”
Nico Van Strien, Tom Foose, Mohammed Khan bin Momin Khan and Ed Maruska, then the director of the Cincinnati Zoo, at a 2001 event celebrating Andalas, the first rhino born as a result of the captive breeding program. Image courtesy of Terri Roth.
There was also Nico Van Strien, just 38 and already the undisputed expert on all things Sumatran rhino. Having just published a landmark 211-page dissertation on Sumatran rhino behavior and ecology, van Strien could be described as the only living academic expert on wild Sumatran rhinos.
Van Strien touched down with his latest estimates of how many animals were left across dozens of potential populations. Already, the species was one of the most endangered large mammals on Earth. It was believed to be extinct from most of its range, from northeastern India to Vietnam, only surviving in Sumatra, Borneo and the Malay Peninsula, though a few were thought to still linger in Thailand and Myanmar.
Van Strien’s 1984 figures put the population at somewhere between 481 and 873 (in 1986, the IUCN would estimate between 425 and 800 were left). But many of his numbers are just educated guesses. In several places, van Strien noted, the numbers were unknown or else based on “unconfirmed reports” or “tracks.” In all likelihood, the real numbers were probably closer to van Strien’s low estimate, and maybe even considerably below that. Many of the large populations he cited either vanished in the next decades or were never there in such numbers to begin with. Kerinci Seblat National Park in Sumatra, for example, was supposed to have 250 to 500 animals; officials announced the rhino extinct there just 20 years later.
The meeting also included several heads of U.S. zoos keen on the project, as well as a number of government officials from Malaysia and Indonesia. Of the 23 attendees, only two were women. Eight of the attendees were non-westerners from Southeast Asia, representing Malaysia, Indonesia and Singapore, where the meeting was held.
The meeting, described in its summary report as the “Ad Hoc Sumatran Rhino Meeting,” would forever change the previously haphazard nature of Sumatran rhino capture and captivity. And it would kick-start a program that would go down, for a long time, as a total and absolute failure, a conservation debacle of epic proportions: A catastrophe that would take decades to produce something real, but now requires a second look.
Early captive Sumatran rhinos, 1641 to 1984
According to the aptly titled book The Rhinoceros in Captivity: A List of 2439 Rhinoceroses Kept from Roman Times to 1994, the first Sumatran rhino known to be kept in captivity was in 1641. It was housed in Aceh, at the northern tip of Sumatra, when the region was a powerful sultanate. Two hundred years would pass before another Sumatran rhino was recorded as being brought into captivity.
During the 19th century, 37 animals were brought into captivity, including two sent to the Barnum & Bailey circus in the U.S.; one of them died within a year, the other survived just five.
In 1889, an even more notable event occurred: a Sumatran rhino that had been living at Calcutta Zoo for several years successfully bred in captivity, the first we know about. At the time, Calcutta Zoo, India’s oldest, was run by an ahead-of-his-time biologist, Ram Brahma Sanyal, who wrote a hugely influential handbook on captive care and breeding. The calf, a male, lived to the age of 14.
Things slowed down considerably over the next half-century, likely due to the two world wars and an increasingly small population of animals (though one rhino did somehow end up in Osaka, Japan).
The next major coordinated effort to capture Sumatran rhinos was an expedition in 1959 to Sumatra led by Switzerland’s Basel Zoo and Denmark’s Copenhagen Zoo. According to the 1964 book Rhino Country by Hakon Skafte, the expedition was the brainchild of Svend Andersen, then the director of Copenhagen Zoo. Andersen told Skafte that what he most wanted was a specimen of “the hairy Sumatran rhinoceros.”
An expedition was launched to an unprotected forest near the Siak River in Riau province. Skafte described it in a 1962 article as “one of the most exciting big-game safaris imaginable.” Skafte and Arne Dyhrberg, also from Copenhagen Zoo, had local men encircle known rhino trails with a 10-by-10-meter (30-by-30–foot) palisade fence with six trap doors that would fall when a rhino entered.
Improbably, the first rhino arrived with an unexpected guest: a Sumatran tiger, which eventually escaped the trap unharmed. But the rhino didn’t survive. In his book, Skafte blames local workers for poisoning her due to a dispute over pay, though he offers no real proof. However, the team soon managed to catch another female, which they named Subur. They sent her to cold Copenhagen, where she lived on a diet of hay, carrots, apples and potatoes (for days en route she ate only rice balls). Miraculously, despite her odd diet, she survived 13 years in Denmark.
The expedition caught three more females after Subur. One died before it could be transported. The other two both died in 1961, one in Basel, the other in Bogor, Indonesia. The expedition did catch one male, but he escaped the trap, making any attempt at breeding impossible.
In the more than 300 years between 1641 and 1984, only 56 Sumatran rhinos had been recorded as being kept in captivity. And by 1980, all of them were dead.
Two Days in Singapore
“We at IUCN consider this a most important occasion, where precedents may be set for other species [in] other regions of the world,” Robert F. Scott, the executive officer of the IUCN Species Survival Commission, said at the opening of the 1984 meeting, according to its carefully documented minutes.
It is clear from the minutes that many participants believed the decisions made regarding the Sumatran rhino could have far-reaching impacts for other species. If zoos and conservationists could succeed in captive breeding of this species, then they could do so for other nearly extinct species. It was an exciting time for zoos, at the time undergoing a major transformation from facilities largely viewed as amusement for people into institutions that could make a serious contribution to conservation. Captive-breeding programs were already ongoing for species like the Arabian oryx and the golden lion tamarin, both of which would prove successful in decades to come. The zoos hoped that a Sumatran rhino captive-breeding program could help prove zoos’ conservation worth.
But not everyone was in favor of a captive-breeding program for the Sumatran rhino.
“More people were against captive breeding but a small core group went ahead,” says Mohammed Khan bin Momin Khan, then the head of the Asian Rhino Specialist Group as well as the Malaysian Wildlife Department director, who attended the meeting.
The most outspoken critic of captive breeding proved to be Rudolf Schenkel, a rhino expert with Basel Zoo (but perhaps best known for his research on captive wolves). According to the minutes, Schenkel repeatedly and effusively argued against captive breeding, saying that an animal in captivity “loses its ‘meaning’ and ‘dignity’” due to its disconnection from the ecosystem in which it evolved.
“He was dead against capture. It’s like a mantra for him,” says Payne, who noted that Schenkel put a “damper” on parts of the meeting. “But everyone sort of politely overruled him.”
A baby Sumatran rhino, born in captivity at the Cincinnati Zoo, displays the species’ characteristic shaggy fur. Transferring rhinos to zoos in the West was a controversial move, but one that proved critical for the program’s success. Photo courtesy of the Cincinnati Zoo.
There was also considerable debate over whether captive breeding should be restricted to Malaysia and Indonesia, which still had surviving Sumatran rhinos, or whether U.S. and U.K. zoos should get a crack at it too. Keeping the animals in an environment to which they were accustomed was, of course, a key argument. But national pride also played a role.
Still, the argument for sending at least some pairs abroad would win out partially — and fatefully, as it turned out. The reason to do so, articulated by Foose, from the Association of Zoos and Aquariums, included the experience of zoos in the U.S. and Europe in caring for other rhino species and their general expertise at captive breeding and management, as well as cutting-edge research into “reproductive technology including artificial insemination, embryo transfer, and cryopreservation.” The interested zoos included some of the best in the world, from San Diego to Cincinnati to the Bronx Zoo.
Bringing Sumatran rhinos to the U.S. would also give “wider recognition and support for the species,” Foose said.
This graphic shows the locations where wild rhinos were captured in the inner ring of the chart. The outer ring shows the locations where the rhinos in the program are currently or were at the time of their death. Chart by Willie Shubert for Mongabay.
At one point in the discussions, according to the minutes, Warren D. Thomas, the director of Los Angeles Zoo, “elaborated on reasons and realities why self-interest of zoos must be considered.”
This point is tantalizingly left at that, but one can imagine that Thomas must have pointed out that if the zoos involved were to put significant amounts of money into the program, they would want a return on their investment, i.e. living Sumatran rhinos at their institutions. The zoos were not only willing to pay for capture and transportation, but also to sponsor increased on-the-ground conservation efforts. Much of this had already been hammered out: both the early agreements between the AZA and Sabah and Aspinall’s Howletts Zoo and Indonesia included technical and financial assistance.
“The debate … was actually much less than expected,” said Nardelli from the Sumatran Rhino Project. “The Indonesian and Sabah government representatives were already convinced to proceed with a captive-breeding project.”
During the meeting, Aspinall brought up the case of the kouprey as a cautionary tale. He noted that while there had been “many” conferences on the forest ox from the Southeast Asian mainland, they had all resulted in zero action.
“The kouprey is now reduced to 10-20 and only a miracle can save it,” he told the meeting.
It was an apt point. The last confirmed sighting of a kouprey came in 1983, a year before the rhino meeting. It’s now assumed extinct.
Over the two-day meeting, the participants appeared to take Aspinall’s point to heart. Though they could disagree, and they frequently did, they didn’t walk away with nothing to show for it.
“Actually, it was a very good discussion,” Payne said.
In the end, the group agreed to the captive breeding of Sumatran rhinos, both in-country and abroad, for animals with “no hope of survival in the wild,” what they often termed “doomed” animals. This meant only taking animals from populations too small to survive in the long term or in habitats already slated for clear-cutting.
It was a choice that would have a longstanding impact on the program’s success.
The meeting also agreed on not mixing the three known subspecies of Sumatran rhino until more taxonomic work was done to understand the differences between them — another decision that would have considerable impact. To date, the subspecies have never been mixed, though; scientists now say it should be done if at all feasible.
The group also agreed to set up a new organization to oversee the efforts and coordinate between the various countries and institutions. This would eventually become the Sumatran Rhino Trust, an organization that would only survive until 1993.
The meeting lasted two days, and anyone who has ever attended such an event might wonder if the most important conversations actually happened over lunch, tea and late-night drinks. But nonetheless, they walked away with a consensus plan.
Foose must have been ecstatic.
Five months before the meeting in Singapore, an incredible event had taken place in Peninsular Malaysia. A half-blind female Sumatran rhino had wandered into an oil palm plantation. She was caught by workers, tied up and surrounded by hundreds of locals. Khan says he had to race to the site to beat “animal dealers” already en route.
Jeram, pictured here tied to an oil palm, was the first Sumatran rhino taken into captivity since the early 1960s. She was found in a palm oil plantation in Peninsular Malaysia in 1984 and was nearly handed over to poachers, but wildlife officials got there first. Image by Mohammed Khan bin Momin Khan.
“I couldn’t believe it was really a Sumatran rhinoceros,” Khan told the media at the time. “I was worried the animal might die of fright and more worried it might be chopped up and exported before we got there.”
Amazingly, Khan got there first, and Jeram, as she came to be known, survived the ordeal. Khan and his team rapidly built a crate, and by midnight they were transporting her to Malacca Zoo.
By the time of the meeting, then, Peninsular Malaysia already had one rhino in captivity, the first one caught in a quarter-century. And conservationists were confident they could catch more animals now and breed the hell out of them.
But the whole thing turned out to be much more complicated than anyone could have ever guessed. Within just 10 years, the meeting in Singapore would come to resemble a drunk driver getting into a car — barely able to make out the road ahead but certain they would arrive home just fine.
After her capture in Peninsular Malaysia, Jeram lived 18 years in captivity in the Malacca Zoo and is believed to have died from old age. She was the first of a capture program that would last over a decade and catch 40 rhinos. Image by Mohammed Khan bin Momin Khan
Read the original article on Mongabay
IZW experts Professor Thomas Hildebrandt and Dr Robert Hermes extract eggs from Iman, assisted here by BORA staff Hassan Sani.
The 4 July 2018 announcement by Professor Thomas Hildebrandt of Leibniz Institute for Zoo and Wildlife Research and his co-workers that embryos of white rhinos have been successfully made in vitro represents one of the most exciting breakthroughs in years for rhino conservation. We at BORA, the Borneo Rhino Alliance, are ecstatic at this development, as it represents a new dawn for not just white rhinos, but also for another, even more endangered species – the Sumatran rhino. While there are only two females of the northern white rhino subspecies left, the white rhino species stands at close to 20,000 individuals. But there are fewer than 100 Sumatran rhinos left in the world. Even this may be an optimistic estimate with some reports claiming only 30 are left in the wild.
Unlike the African and Indian rhino species, Sumatran rhino numbers have drastically plummeted not primarily by poaching. Instead, since the 1930s, the four-part threat was, and still is –
1) Not enough Sumatran rhinos in any one place to form a breeding population 2) Few or no mates in any one location, so very little to no mating 3) Inbreeding due to isolation over several generations
4) Reproductive tract pathology and infertility due to the above three syndromes
As a result, for many decades, there have not been enough Sumatran rhino births to sustain the species, whether or not poaching can be prevented. Natural breeding was seen as the solitary key solution but in the past five years, there has only been one birth in captivity, while there have been three deaths. In the absence of concerted efforts to maximize all available avenues of increasing the number of Sumatran rhino births, the oldest and smallest of all rhino species has been on a one-way fast track to extinction.
File image of Puntung, a female rhino rescued by BORA vet Dr Zainal Zainuddin. Photo by C C Azrie Alliamat
There is only one clear way now to save the species – all the last remaining Sumatran rhinos have to be brought into a single managed breeding programme, where two complementary approaches are taken: allowing the fertile ones to breed naturally, and supporting the infertile ones to allow their limited eggs and sperm to create embryos in vitro.
BORA has been desperately working for the past decade to try to breed new generations of Sumatran rhinos. But we faced incredible obstacles in the form of not enough rhinos left in Malaysia and the rhinos’ reproductive tract pathology and infertility. With the help of Professor Hildebrandt (IZW, Germany), Professor Cesare Galli (AVANTEA, Italy) and Professor Arief Boediono (IPB, Indonesia) and their colleagues, we have tried to create a Sumatran rhino embryo in vitro. It was a process that had been derided by many of our counterparts as being fantasy and foolish thinking.
But now with this success for the white rhino, the issue for the Sumatran rhino is no longer about “can in vitro fertilization be done?” but “why are we not prioritizing such work for Sumatran rhinos?”.
Only a few tens of Sumatran rhinos remain alive in Indonesia, and only two, a female and a male in Malaysia. Professor Hildebrandt and his co-workers have been aiming for in vitro production of Sumatran rhino embryos since 2011, when there were three females and the male alive in well-managed facilities in the Malaysian State of Sabah and five managed in the Sumatran Rhino Sanctuary in Indonesia. But the advanced reproductive technology group has never managed to gain interest from some of the most prominent institutions that need to collaborate or provide support to generate a single recovery programme.
The government of Malaysia, Sime Darby Foundation, and numerous interested individual donors from around the world have provided critical financial support for attempts to apply advanced reproductive technology to Sumatran rhinos, but the shocking lack of interest outside Malaysia has stymied the much-needed species recovery programme. The amount of funding going to advanced reproductive technology on Sumatran rhinos simply has been not sufficient enough to allow the scientific process to catch up to the sort of work done on the northern white rhino. The funds from international donors, which currently include a generous donation from government of USA, have gone to camera trapping, surveys, anti-poaching patrols and meetings in Indonesia and USA. This approach fails to recognize that the greatest threat doesn’t come from outside the Sumatran rhino population. It comes from within. Too few Sumatran rhinos, that are scattered and not breeding. All these efforts are akin to putting a band aid over a tumor.
For years, we’ve been trying to engage and work with prominent institutions that are able to influence or lead the charge to save the Sumatran rhino but we’ve been forced to refrain from taking them to task.
But today, we make our stand. The science of advanced reproductive technology is now beginning to deliver, and all of us must embrace it as we do everything in our power to save the most endangered of rhino species by increasing the number of births. We call on the Government of Indonesia, the International Rhino Foundation and the International Union for Conservation of Nature, to recognize the incredible and critical opportunity we have in front of us. Create a programme that prioritises Sumatran rhino births, through both natural breeding of fertile rhinos and in vitro fertilization for those that need such help. The alternative is to choose certain extinction.
Dr John Payne,
Executive Director of Borneo Rhino Alliance
View featured gallery highlighting IVF efforts to save the Sumatran rhino
The seemingly “disastrous” story of the world’s most endangered mammal – the northern white rhino – could be rewritten by IVF, scientists claim.
They used the method to produce rhino embryos with sperm from two dead males.
The embryos were made using eggs from a closely related sub-species, but the scientists say the method could save the northern white rhino.
One of the team said he hoped a baby that’s fully northern white rhino would be born “within three years”.
This could provide a way of “rescuing valuable genes” from a sub-species that is already functionally extinct; the last male northern white rhino, named Sudan, died earlier this year at the age of 45.
Only two females now remain, but the researchers who carried out this project say their carefully-developed method of assisted reproduction could work with eggs harvested from those two precious animals.
How do you carry out rhino IVF?
In the journal Nature Communications, Prof Thomas Hildebrandt, from the Leibniz Institute for Zoo and Wildlife Research in Berlin, and his international team of colleagues, described the complexities of safely extracting an egg, or oocyte, from a two-tonne female rhino.
“You can’t reach the ovaries by hand, so we developed a special device,” Prof Hildebrandt explained to BBC News. “We used ultrasound to very precisely inject a needle into [the area of the ovary that releases] eggs.”
This was done while the female southern white rhino was under general anaesthetic, but the process is still very risky. Very close to the ovaries, Prof Hildebrandt explained, is a “huge artery” that if punctured would probably cause the rhino to bleed to death.
But once viable eggs were safely preserved, the team then had the challenge of fertilising them with sperm from male northern white rhinos – animals that died several years ago. They injected each egg with the sperm and used pulses of electrical current to stimulate the egg and sperm to fuse.
The result – viable embryos containing genetic material from a sub-species that is already functionally extinct.
“Everyone believed there was no hope for this sub-species,” said Prof Hildebrandt. “But with our knowledge now, we are very confident that this will work with northern white rhino eggs and that we will be able to produce a viable population.”
Could this bring back the northern white rhino?
These researchers think so, and others around the world who have been involved in efforts to save the northern white rhino say it is an important step.
But Dr Terri Roth, from Cincinnati Zoo, said the team’s suggestion that they would have a “new baby on the ground” within three years was “optimistic”.
“Embryo transfer [into a surrogate mother] in rhinos is in its infancy and has not yet been successful in any rhino species,” Dr Roth told BBC News.
“And there are just two female northern white rhinos alive today, so acquiring white rhino [eggs] will be challenging and their number will be limited. Any embryos produced would likely need to be cryopreserved (or frozen) until a surrogate could be set up.”
Why are there so few northern white rhinos left?
As Dr Roth explained, poaching is the primary threat facing all rhino species.
“The most effective way to save rhinos from extinction is to stop the poaching, however, that has proven difficult,” she told BBC News.
“In the late 1990s, even the wild northern white rhino had a chance to recover from low numbers until civil unrest broke out in the DRC and the rhinos were all killed.”
Loss of habitat is the other primary threat to rhinos, and conservationists say that governmental protection of parks and reserves is now essential.
“The proper legislation must be passed, the resources to enforce the regulations must be provided and the law must be upheld,” said Dr Roth, who has worked in rhino conservation for more than two decades.
“It is important that we learn from the plight of the northern white rhino and we make sure what happened to it does not happen to other endangered species.
“As impressive as science can be, we should not reach a point where these hi-tech approaches are the only source of hope for rescuing genes of valuable individuals, sub-species or entire species.”
Read the full BBC News article by Victoria Gill, Science reporter
DNA of northern white rhino — of which only two remain — mixed with that of close subspecies in a bid towards growing population using surrogates.
Fatu, one of the last two northern white rhinos, lives in Ol Pejeta Conservancy in Kenya.Credit: Nichole Sobecki/The Washington Post/Getty
Researchers have created hybrid rhino embryos as part of a ‘Hail-Mary’ attempt to rescue the northern white rhinoceros from all but certain extinction.
The embryos — which have now been frozen — contain DNA from northern white rhinos (Ceratotherium simum cottoni) and a close relative subspecies and could be implanted into surrogates to yield animals that are a mix of both. The work is reported in a Nature Communications paper published on 4 July1.
The research “is an impressive step forward for the whole field”, says stem-cell biologist Jeanne Loring, at the Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla, California. Her team hopes to use stem-cell technology to repopulate the rhinos.
A victim to poaching, the northern white rhino population is now down to only two females, making it the planet’s most endangered mammal. Earlier this year, Sudan, the last male of the subspecies, died of age-related disease (although his sperm has been preserved). His daughter Najin and her daughter, Fatu, live in Ol Pejeta Conservancy in Kenya. Najin has leg injuries that prevent her from becoming pregnant, and Fatu has fertility problems that prevent embryos from implanting into the womb.
Innovation versus extinction
Extinction of the northern white rhino would seem inevitable. However, a team led by Cesare Galli, a veterinarian and embryologist at Avantea, a biotechnology laboratory in Cremona, Italy, may have given the animal a second chance. Galli and his colleagues have developed a technique to extract eggs from female rhinos and fertilize them to generate viable embryos potentially capable of becoming animals.
Rather than test the procedure — which involves a risky anaesthetic — on Najin and Fatu, the researchers collected eggs from 12 southern white rhinos (Ceratotherium simum simum), a closely related subspecies whose numbers stand at around 20,000 across southern Africa.
The hybrid embryos were created with eggs collected from southern white rhinos and northern white rhino sperm.Credit: T. B. Hildebrandt et al./Nat. Commun.
Of 13 eggs injected with sperm from a now-deceased northern white rhino, four developed into blastocysts, or early embryos. These ‘hybrid’ blastocysts, which contain genes from both subspecies, can be frozen and later implantated into a surrogate to produce hybrid offspring. These hybrids could ensure that some of the northern white rhino DNA would be preserved.
The researchers injected 17 other eggs with sperm from a southern white rhino, to produce three ‘pure’ southern white rhino blastocysts.
To test the health of the blastocysts, the team generated stem-cell lines from two of the pure embryos. These showed all the signs of healthy embryonic stem cells, suggesting that the embryos from which they were generated would be viable once implanted.
Expand and diversify
The next step will be to harvest eggs from Najin and Fatu, fertilize them with northern white rhino sperm and implant the resulting embryos in a southern white surrogate — with an ultimate goal of having the first northern white rhino born within three years.
However, the offspring of this effort would lack the genetic diversity to sustain a healthy wild population of northern white rhinos, says Galli. A better, but more challenging, avenue is to use frozen tissue from a wider pool of northern white rhinos to generate stem cells that have the capacity to develop into eggs and sperm (see ‘Saving the Northern White Rhino’).
In 2011, Loring and her colleagues produced such cells, called induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells, from Fatu’s skin2. Since then, Loring and her team have created 4 more iPS cell lines from northern white rhino tissue stored at San Diego Zoo Institute for Conservation Research in California.
In May, the researchers showed that this tissue — which comes from 12 male and female rhinos — contains enough genetic diversity to help save these giant animals3. “We expect to have cells that look like sperm and eggs in a year,” says Loring, “but there are still many challenges ahead.”
Humans versus nature
“It would be fantastic to see the northern white rhino back in its natural habitat,” says Stuart Pimm, a conservation biologist at Duke University in Durham, North Carolina. However, he is concerned that the underlying cause of the rhinos’ near-extinction has not been dealt with.
“Let’s celebrate this endeavour, but keep it in perspective,” Pimm says. “We still live in a world in which we have lost an enormous number of rhinos to poaching, and if we have any chance of putting their descendants back into the wild, we’ll have to prevent them from being killed the moment they’re released.”
LAHAD DATU, Malaysia – The rhino breeding center near the entrance to Danum Valley Conservation Area sits like an oasis of calm against the cacophony of beeps, woots and zaps of the surrounding jungle.
So calm it’s eerie, in fact. No one is working on the grounds. There are no animals in the collection of holding pens and chutes. Despite a few spots of rust, the green paint shows none of the wear that would have come with housing cow-size animals. A silent generator sits in the corner, and the whole area is surrounded by heavy cable fencing that’s never been tested.
On a side of the road sits a sign that reads, “THE DANUM VALLEY BORNEO RHINO SANCTUARY, DVBRS.” The text explains that I’m looking at the site of the breeding program for the Bornean rhinoceros, but a parenthetical below notes, “THERE IS NO RHINO IN CAPTIVITY AS YET.”
In the three years since the center’s construction not far from the town of Lahad Datu, the Bornean subspecies (Dicerorhinus sumatrensis harrissoni) of the Critically Endangered Sumatran rhino (Dicerorhinus sumatrensis) has only grown more elusive. Most experts agreed in 2015 that the only ones still living in Malaysia were the three captive rhinos in an enclosure at Tabin Wildlife Reserve, east of the town of Lahad Datu. Sadly, that number is down to two: Puntung, a 25-year-old female captured in Tabin in 2011, had to be euthanized in early June, shortly after being diagnosed with terminal cancer.
Puntung, a female Sumatran rhino at Tabin Wildlife Reserve in April. Her caretakers discovered that she had cancer in April, which caused a serious abscess in her jaw. Photo courtesy of the Sabah Wildlife Department.
I’d come to Danum Valley in part to follow up on a revelation that one more rhino might still be lumbering around the valley’s old-growth forests. In 2016, a team of scientists announced that they had found something resembling a rhinoceros print in the 438-square-kilometer (169-square-mile) reserve. It touched off a flurry of speculation – mostly by journalists like me – that a remnant population of rhinos may be hiding out in Danum.
But since learning of the possibility, I hadn’t been able to find anyone to tell me more about what it might mean. During a recent trip to Sabah, the WWF scientist who led the expedition turned down my request for an interview. And others scoffed at my naïveté when I brought up the “discovery.”
Footprint or fabrication?
In fact, it seemed that many conservationists believe that this apparition – this potential figment that could have just as easily been from a small elephant as from Borneo’s diminutive, shaggy rhinos – could actually be a detriment to the species’ survival, rather than a sign of hope.
The footprint, publicized at a press conference, crystallizes a decades-old struggle over how best to ensure the survival of these animals. Should managers do all they can to maintain wild populations? Or should they gather the surviving holdouts and help them reproduce?
Those in the latter camp write off the print as a myth that’s skewing the focus – and funding dollars – of conservation away from where it should be.
“The ‘rhino’ is a fabrication,” John Payne told me in an email. “[People] keep doing that.”
A biologist with decades of research and conservation experience in Borneo, Payne took the helm of SOS Rhino, a conservation group now known as BORA, short for the Borneo Rhino Alliance, in 2009. BORA is focused on saving the Sumatran rhino through an intensive breeding program based at the facility in Tabin.
“There are no wild rhinos left in Malaysia,” he added.
In Payne’s view, such a highly publicized whiff that there might still be hope for wild rhinos in Malaysian Borneo is misleading. A single animal banging around the brush of Borneo means little to the long-term survival of the species, especially given the species’ failure to recover even in protected areas like Danum Valley.
With one or two exceptions in Indonesia, rhino populations just aren’t large enough to harbor the level of genetic diversity necessary for their long-term survival, said Muhammad Agil, a veterinarian and faculty member at Bogor Agricultural University in Indonesia. Once a group dips below 15 individuals, it’s no longer a viable population, Agil said.
The science also seems to indicate that that isolation could lead to reproductive problems.
Those facts should be guiding conservation efforts away from observation of the existing wild rhinos, Agil told me, with fewer than 100 animals scattered throughout the Indonesian forests of Sumatra and Kalimantan in Borneo.
“We don’t need to do surveys anymore,” he said. “We need to do search and rescue for the rhinos.”
The goal of such missions is to bring the animals into an intensive breeding program employing assisted reproductive technology, such as artificial insemination and the harvest of females’ eggs, as the only hope for the most endangered rhinos in the world.
Keeping wild animals wild
The push for intensive breeding isn’t new. Intensive breeding programs that began in the 1980s with 45 individual rhinos have only led to five live births in captivity, and three of those occurred far from the jungles of Southeast Asia at the Cincinnati Zoo in the United States.
But the broader strategy of helping Sumatran rhinos to reproduce hasn’t been immune from criticism. Critics argue that the substantial cash outlay required to keep rhinos in captivity and carry out techniques such as in vitro fertilization would have been better spent on protecting animals in the wild.
More than 20 years ago, Alan Rabinowitz, then a biologist with the Wildlife Conservation Society, strongly opposed the use of finite resources for captive breeding. At the time, Rabinowitz wrote in an essay in the journal Conservation Biology that “viable populations” of rhinos still existed in Borneo and deserved protection. He argued that captive breeding efforts didn’t address the hunting and habitat loss that nearly wiped out rhinos in the first place.
Then, in 2012, Rabinowitz, currently the CEO of the big cat conservation group Panthera, questioned the endgame for captive rhino breeding when threats to wild rhinos still exist for a news story in the journal Nature. That viewpoint still guides many of the rhino conservation efforts, said ecologist Petra Kretzschmar at the Leibniz Institute for Zoo and Wildlife Research in Berlin.
A Sumatran rhino (Dicerorhinus sumatrensis) calf in Indonesia. Photo by Rhett A. Butler.
“Today, the main strategy to help save the Sumatran rhinos is protection,” Kretzschmar said. Many funders want to see their money go to protecting wild populations – just as Rabinowitz argued for in 1995 – because they see that as the priority.
But, “It’s not,” Kretzschmar said. “Protection of the habitat is important, but it will not save the species.”
Beyond protection
The idea of keeping rhinos in the wild fits with the ethos of conservation, to keep as many wild animals as possible roaming around their natural habitats, subject to no outside mastery other than their own whims. And perhaps that’s why news that someone found a print is so intoxicating.
I certainly took a sip of that wine, even as the scientists I spoke with told me I might as well be chasing a unicorn. It’s a scene many of us dream of: stumbling upon a remnant of one of the world’s rarest animals, standing healthy and virile in the forest as its ancestors have in Southeast Asian rainforests for millions of years.
If there was anywhere in Malaysian Borneo rhinos would be, I thought, it seems that Danum Valley would be the place, a reserve that some of the world’s most seasoned tropical ecologists speak of only in hushed tones. Imagine flipping through a time-lapse series of rainforest photographs where you can watch the stepwise creep of the vegetation skyward in a slow-motion race for sunlight. It’s a punishing competition, and the decaying biomass all around leaves little doubt about what happens to the losers.
Big animals themselves in the forest are elusive. Within half a kilometer of the Danum Valley Field Centre, however, my guide Dedy points out the fresh mud wallows of boars from the night before and, in another spot, a pungent mix of dung, tracks and broken branches – souvenirs from their recent brush with an elephant herd moving up a creek bed.
Never mind that the ephemeral 700-kilogram (1,500-pound) animal left behind no other signs. And it still seemed unlikely that a rhino would escape the notice of the roughly 100 scientists working in the conservation area at any given time. That absence of a rhino sighting in Danum Valley since 2014 has been misinterpreted, BORA’s John Payne said.
“They think that not finding them means they’re not easy to find,” he told me when we met in Kota Kinabalu, Sabah’s capital city. “They’re easy to find.”
And the wild population’s downward spiral may have been beyond the help of conventional, protection-centered conservation for decades, Payne said, adding, “It should have been blindingly obvious that no rhino populations were demographically viable 50 years ago.”
The decimation of Borneo’s rhinos
Beginning in the 1930s, people started hunting the Bornean subspecies. Unlike their African cousins, which were (and have continued to be) a favorite quarry of foreign hunters, rhinos in Borneo were targeted from the outset by locals to fuel – then as now – the trade of rhino horn going mostly to China.
It wasn’t long before someone figured out that the island’s rhinos couldn’t withstand this kind of pressure. As early as the 1980s, scientists sounded the alarm that rhinos were at risk of being wiped out and that we needed to eliminate the threats to their survival.
But when conservationists began working to staunch poaching and rhino habitat loss, the numbers didn’t rebound the way that other rhino species had under similar protections, Kretzschmar said, who works in rhino conservation all over the world. Today, Africa’s southern white rhino (Ceratotherium simum simum) stands as a testament to the success of earnest protection: Hunting slashed the population to no more than 100 animals by 1895, but today there are more than 20,000.
A Sumatran rhino calf wallows in the mud while its mother looks on. Conservationists hope to increase the success rate of captive breeding programs for the Critically Endangered species. Photo by Rhett A. Butler.
The Sumatran rhino has followed a different path.
In small populations, maintaining genetic diversity is a concern of course, but so is the chance that they’ll bump into each other. With so few rhinos, “There’s only little chance for the individuals to meet each other,” Kretzschmar said.
This reality seems to be particularly true on the island of Borneo. For all of the spectacular life it supports, the number of large animals Borneo supports is relatively meager. A landmark study in the 1980s revealed that the island’s soils don’t pack the same levels of nutrients found elsewhere in Southeast Asia, and subsequent research postulated that this difference crimps the numbers of big mammals that can survive on the island.
The behavior of Borneo’s rhinos doesn’t seem to have helped the species out very much either, especially as those numbers continued their downward trajectory. As far as we know, they like to keep to themselves, and the desire to breed doesn’t seem to convince them to push those boundaries of solitude.
“It’s all preprogrammed inside them that they will not go beyond their territory to look for a mate,” said Zainal Zahari, a veterinarian with BORA.
In more than 30 years working alongside these animals, he is well-versed in the quirks of Sumatran rhino biology. He and other rhino biologists believe that this isolation, caused first and foremost by the decimation of the species at the hands of hunters and the loss of their forest homes throughout much of the 20th century, has not only whittled away the diverse gene pool that keeps animals healthy. It has also kept the rhinos from finding each other. They think that it has caused the tumors in the females’ reproductive tracts that have thus far made successful captive breeding such an elusive outcome.
The issue may have to do with the animals’ own biochemistry. Female rhinos continue to cycle through estrus whether there’s a bull around or not. If they don’t copulate, biologists think that the “hormone overload” during this time in their cycles, which would ordinarily prime them for pregnancy, might actually be causing these reproductive problems, according to research that identified similar problems in Indian rhinos (Rhinoceros unicornis).
All of these issues mean that the remaining rhinos have little chance of reproducing on their own. Right now, in Indonesia, more wild rhinos could be captured and brought into breeding programs, such as the Sumatran Rhino Sanctuary in Way Kambas National Park, where two rhinos have been born in captivity.
Zahari notes the tensions that come with working across international borders.
“There is still distrust,” he said. “There is still patriotism.”
Still, BORA’s staff there wants to share what they’ve learned with Indonesia for the sake of the species. The team has made a lot of progress in their understanding of how to keep these animals healthy, he said.
Kretzschmar and Zahari were both heartened by a recent meeting of rhino conservationists in Jakarta, during which the Indonesian government signaled an openness to using artificial insemination, Kretzschmar said.
Muhammad Agil said that a team in Indonesia was poised to share semen collected from one of its captive bulls with BORA in Sabah, once approval from the Indonesian government comes through. They also hope to receive semen from Tam, a bull kept at Tabin. Agil said this sort of sharing between sanctuaries was essential to maintain the genetic diversity of the few Sumatran rhinos left.
He also reported a better understanding of the fact that scientists, NGOs and governments can no longer keep their efforts to themselves. “It will be more valuable and the success rate will be higher if we can get all of the experts to work together,” he said.
As Kretzschmar told me before the conference, “The most critical and important point to save the Sumatran rhino comes down to communication – communication between governments, but also between organizations.” And everyone needs to come together to pull the animal from the claws of extinction.
“It should be one management plan,” she added.
If the rhino conservation community cannot find a way to share these lessons, “They will make the same mistakes that Sabah did,” Zahari said. “Then the story stops there.”
Now, acting quickly is as important as the willingness on both sides to bring the animals together and create one breeding program to save the species.
“Numbers are dropping,” Kretzschmar said, “and if there is not a speed-up in the process, the whole species is going to be extinct in the next 10 years.”
Payne laments that a single program to save the Sumatran rhinoceros “should have been done years ago.” Like a relic to that missed opportunity, the rhino sanctuary in Danum Valley sits unused, and it seems unlikely that a rhino will ever make its way through the gates there.
The center also represents an obsolete way of thinking, that there should – or could – be separate breeding programs for this imperiled species. Paradoxically, such places, built expressly for the preservation of the species, might create the same conditions that spurred the need for them in the first place.
“It doesn’t help if we have [multiple] breeding centers” that aren’t working together with just a few animals in each, Kretzschmar said. “Then we have isolated populations again.”
The pregnant rhino captured on remote camera trap by WWF Malaysia outside Tabin Wildlife Reserve
BORA and Sabah Wildlife Department patrol team in Tabin Wildlife Department
Iman in her paddock. Pic from BORA
Emi became an icon of rhino conservation when she became the first rhino to give birth in captivity in over 100 years. She gave birth to three calves before she passed away in 2009.
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
Tam can roam in the knowledge that he is safe from poachers in the rhino sanctuary.
The Sumatran rhino is the smallest of the remaining rhino species, but it is critically endangered — with 100 or fewer left in the wild today. Photo credit: Terri Roth
1 Mar 2015, Kota Kinabalu: The Sumatran rhino once browsed the forests in India, Bangladesh, Myanmar, Laos, Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia, and China. By the mid-20th century, its range and population has drastically shrunk due to forest habitat loss and killing for its horn. The demand for rhino horn stems from the common yet misguided belief that it harbours medicinal properties. 
Desperate situation: Sumatran rhinos are shy and reclusive animals.
“Our goal now is to get all stakeholders to step up and be involved,” says Schaffer.
The rhino enclosure at the Sepilok Orang Utan Sanctuary – attempts at getting captive rhinos to mate and reproduce in the 90s met with little success.
A rhino captured in Malaysia crated and loaded on a truck for transport. Within a few years of the 1984 meeting, Malaysia decided not to send rhinos to zoos in the U.S. or U.K. Image by Mohammed Khan bin Momin Khan.
This graph depicts the lifespan in captivity of Sumatran rhinos that ended up in facilities in Malaysia, according to their final place of residence. Of this group, the only rhino to give birth in captivity was Rima, who was pregnant when she was captured. Tam and Iman are still alive, and are currently the only Bornean rhinos in captivity. Image by Willie Shubert/Mongabay
A transport crate prepared for one of the rhinos captured in Peninsular Malaysia. Image by Mohammed Khan bin Momin Khan.
This graph depicts the lifespans in captivity of wild-caught rhinos held in facilities in Indonesia. Bina is the only survivor of the original capture program. She lives at the Sumatran Rhino Sanctuary in Way Kambas along with Rosa, Ratu and her two calves, and two male rhinos bred in captivity at the Cincinnati Zoo. Image by Willie Shubert/Mongabay.
This graph illustrates the date of capture, and time and place of death, of the Sumatran rhinos that were captured in Indonesia and brought to the United States as part of captive breeding efforts. Ipuh (male) and Emi (female) were the only pair to successfully breed. Image by Willie Shubert/Mongabay.
Ipuh lived at the Cincinnati Zoo for 22 years until his death in 2013. His remains are still on display in Cincinnati. Photo courtesy of the Cincinnati Zoo.
All but one female mated with a male at Sungai Dusun, notes Terri Roth who visited the facility and says the rhinos appeared to be well cared for. Image by Terri Roth.
Puntung, pictured here with veterinarian Zainal Zainuddin shortly after her capture in 2011, was euthanized in 2017. Suffering from cancer, she was estimated to be around 25 when she died. Image courtesy of BORA.
A bridge and crate used to transfer captured Sumatran rhinos during the original program in 1984. Image courtesy of Francesco Nardelli. Targeting such small populations for captive breeding also led to extreme gender imbalance in captivity. In Peninsular Malaysia, only two of the 11 adult rhinos caught were male. The situation was nearly the exact opposite in Sabah, where six males were caught (plus another two that died during the trapping), and only two females.
Melintang was captured in 1985 in Peninsular Malaysia. She was then sent to Thailand as a gift to the nation’s king. She died less than a year and a half after her capture due to unintentional strangulation in the fenced enclosure at Dusit Zoo. The bars were not the right width apart. Image by Mohammed Khan bin Momin Khan.
Erong, a male calf caught in Sumatra was given full cream milk by a ranger. He died shortly after. Image by Mohammed Khan bin Momin Khan.
Conservationists relied on makeshift bridges to capture rhinos in remote areas. Critics argue that more should have been done to protect these habitats. Image courtesy of Francesco Nardelli.
Born in the wilds of Sumatra, Ipuh is to-date the most prolific male breeder of his species in captivity. His taxidermed remains now reside at the University of Cincinnati. Image by Jeremy Hance for Mongabay.
Nico Van Strien, Tom Foose, Mohammed Khan bin Momin Khan and Ed Maruska, then the director of the Cincinnati Zoo, at a 2001 event celebrating Andalas, the first rhino born as a result of the captive breeding program. Image courtesy of Terri Roth.
A baby Sumatran rhino, born in captivity at the Cincinnati Zoo, displays the species’ characteristic shaggy fur. Transferring rhinos to zoos in the West was a controversial move, but one that proved critical for the program’s success. Photo courtesy of the Cincinnati Zoo.
This graphic shows the locations where wild rhinos were captured in the inner ring of the chart. The outer ring shows the locations where the rhinos in the program are currently or were at the time of their death. Chart by Willie Shubert for Mongabay.
Jeram, pictured here tied to an oil palm, was the first Sumatran rhino taken into captivity since the early 1960s. She was found in a palm oil plantation in Peninsular Malaysia in 1984 and was nearly handed over to poachers, but wildlife officials got there first. Image by Mohammed Khan bin Momin Khan.
After her capture in Peninsular Malaysia, Jeram lived 18 years in captivity in the Malacca Zoo and is believed to have died from old age. She was the first of a capture program that would last over a decade and catch 40 rhinos. Image by Mohammed Khan bin Momin Khan
IZW experts Professor Thomas Hildebrandt and Dr Robert Hermes extract eggs from Iman, assisted here by BORA staff Hassan Sani.
File image of Puntung, a female rhino rescued by BORA vet Dr Zainal Zainuddin. Photo by C C Azrie Alliamat
For years, we’ve been trying to engage and work with prominent institutions that are able to influence or lead the charge to save the Sumatran rhino but we’ve been forced to refrain from taking them to task.
The seemingly “disastrous” story of the world’s most endangered mammal – the northern white rhino – could be rewritten by IVF, scientists claim.
Fatu, one of the last two northern white rhinos, lives in Ol Pejeta Conservancy in Kenya.Credit: Nichole Sobecki/The Washington Post/Getty
The hybrid embryos were created with eggs collected from southern white rhinos and northern white rhino sperm.Credit: T. B. Hildebrandt et al./Nat. Commun.