October 2025

By SHEELA CHANDRAN, Star2, September 13 2016

The clock is ticking for the critically endangered Sumatran rhinos. There are only three rhinos left in Malaysia and conservationists are working tirelessly to save these animals from extinction.

In a span of six years, only three of the species have been captured from the jungles of Sabah – a male named Tam (found in 2008) and two females, Puntung (2011) and Iman (2014). The Sumatran rhinos have been relocated to the Borneo Rhino Sanctuary at Tabin Wildlife Reserve (TWR), a 1,225sq km nature preserve in Lahad Datu, Sabah.

It was built in 1984 to preserve the state’s disappearing wild animals. Over there, Sabah-based NGO Borneo Rhino Alliance (Bora) has been taking great pains to ensure the survival of these gentle giants.

With three rhinos found within six years, could there be a glimmer of hope that more rhinos are roaming Sabah’s jungles? Sadly, Bora’s executive director Datuk Dr John Payne says the chances are close to zero.

“Bora and WWF-Malaysia have been searching for these endangered animals at Danum Valley Conservation Area (also in Lahad Datu) and TWR for decades. Sumatran rhinos are distinctive animals, easily found by their footprints or captured on camera traps. If there aren’t any evidence within three months, it is safe to conclude that there aren’t any rhinos present,” explains Payne, 62, during the premiere of National Geographic Channel’s Operation Sumatran Rhino.

The documentary follows Bora’s efforts (led by Payne and veterinarian/field manager Dr Zainal Zainuddin) to drive public awareness of the rhino’s plight.

The documentary will air on National Geographic Wild (Astro Ch 550) on Sept 19.

Rhinos are solitary animals and there is the problem of breeding due to designated home ranges, says Dr Zainal.

“Female Sumatran rhinos have their own home ranges and male rhinos have theirs, too. Usually, the male’s home range overlaps several home ranges of females. However, if a male dies and there are no other males around, the females go unbred,” explains Dr Zainal, who has been with Bora since 2010.

Dr Zainal Zainuddin feeding Iman a nutritious diet.

Online news website usatoday.com in its article, 13 Species We Might Have To Say Goodbye To In 2015, states that the world is losing dozens of species every day in what experts say is the sixth mass extinction in Earth’s history.

The report highlights that as many as 30% to 50% of all species are moving towards extinction by mid-century. It lists the rhino as one of the planet’s most endangered animals alongside the amur leopard, leatherback turtle and Siberian tiger.

The Sumatran rhinos were declared extinct in the wild in Malaysia in 2015. There are fewer than 100 of the species left, which are mostly found in the jungles of Kalimantan and Sumatra. If no efforts are taken, our children may never be able to see these animals, except in a picture book.

Bora’s website (www.borneorhinoalliance.org) states that due to a thousand years of relentless hunting throughout Asia for their horns, Sumatran rhino numbers were severely depressed by the early 20th century. Habitat loss from human population growth and farming further affected the population. But these two problems have combined to create a different threat – a lack of breeding.

Although the simplest tactic to increase the Sumatran rhino’s population would be to reproduce calfs (between existing rhinos in Malaysia and Indonesia), no fertility programme has been conceptualised between both countries, says Payne.

“It does not matter where the rhinos are housed because semen and eggs can be moved between facilities, or rhinos moved on loan from one place to another. For it to work out, all remaining living Sumatran rhinos must be absorbed into the programme,” explains the British rhino expert who has been involved with efforts to prevent the extinction of critically endangered species since the 1970s.

Dr Zainal hopes Indonesia shares the same mindset as the country could face the same problem as Malaysia in years to come.

“The more trials on assisted reproductive technology (ART) and in vitro fertilisation (IVF), the higher the chances of saving a genus from extinction. It would help us greatly as we have only the last three rhinos. The kind of collaboration that we want is a supply of frozen sperm from Indonesia to use for IVF with eggs from our females,” says the 58-year-old vet, adding that there are plans to cryogenically freeze (low-temperature preservation) Sumatran rhino gametes (if an animal dies) and work on cell cultures for future propagation, including cloning.

Payne chips in: “These methods are being done in Malaysia. The issue is the lack of eggs and sperm for practice, that are holding up progress on this. Hopefully we will receive support from the Indonesian Government to pursue the necessary strategy to save the species from extinction.”

Despite the best medical assistance, there is an underlying health problem: female rhinos tend to develop cysts or tumours in the uterus and reproductive tracts, a syndrome associated with long periods without breeding, explains Payne.

“Two years ago, Malaysia attempted its first IVF on two female Sumatran rhinos. So far, only 12 eggs have been harvested but some were of poor quality. There’s also the problem of transporting eggs to specialist IVF laboratories in Europe and Kuala Lumpur,” says Payne, who hopes to obtain several good eggs every month and a lab nearer to Tabin to boost chances of IVF success.

Dr Zainal says another issue is that the rhinos are old, resulting in fewer eggs for IVF trials.

“In Malaysia, we do not have a choice but to use semen from an old male and eggs from two old females. To make matters worse, our females have various reproductive issues,” says Dr Zainal.

Despite the hurdles, these conservationists are not about to give up. In fact, they are even more determined to ensure the survival of the Sumatran rhinos.

“We will keep them (the last three) alive and healthy and productive (for eggs and sperm). We will not give up working on collaborations with Indonesia and the rest of the world. And lastly, we will continue to look for rhinos if at all they exist and hope for the best,” adds Dr Zainal.
Read more at http://www.star2.com/living/animals/2016/09/13/join-sumatran-rhinos-race-extinction/#feqtPgdUyfy48PpD.9

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

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

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

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

NST Online 18 Dec 2016 by Olivia Mivil: ALL the remaining Sumatran rhinos in Malaysia and Indonesia, which number less than 100, should be managed as a single population to facilitate the reproduction of the critically-endangered species.

Researchers believe only a few of the species are left in Malaysia. Two females, Puntong and Iman, and a middle-aged male, named Kertam, have been relocated to the Borneo Rhino Sanctuary at the Tabin Wildlife Reserve in Lahad Datu, Sabah. Puntong, 20, had her front left foot torn off in a hunter’s snare trap when she was an infant, while Iman was the last wild rhino to be captured in Danum Valley, Sabah, in 2014. Both have problems conceiving due to the conditions of their reproductive system. Iman, despite being diagnosed with severe fibroids in the uterus, can still produce eggs. Sabah-based Borneo Rhino Alliance (Bora) executive director Datuk Dr Junaidi Payne says over a period of two-and-a-half years, 15 Sumatran rhino eggs have been obtained from Iman and Puntong. Bora’s role is to care for rhinos in the sanctuary, and seek and capture rhinos in the wild. All rhino eggs have been used for in-vitro fertilisation efforts, but have yet to yield results. “We need more females in the programme to secure the first embryo faster and work out the protocols and conditions for success,” Payne says. He says many factors affect the success of fertilisation, including old age, poor quality of sperm and eggs and other infertility-related conditions. Factors that need to be considered include the optimum pH level, ideal temperature and protein requirements for the egg maturation liquid during procedures at the laboratory. On the male rhino’s part, its sperm can be frozen with liquid nitrogen, so that it can be used later for in-vitro fertilisation. Payne says even though about a quarter of all remaining Sumatran rhinos have significant fertility issues, efforts to boost the reproduction rate are in the pipeline through advanced reproductive and cellular technologies. “We should not rely on hope to save the endangered species in the wild. In the past few decades, there have been too few individuals in any one area to form a viable breeding population,” he says, quashing a recent report by a researcher on the possible discovery of a rhino footprint in the Danum Valley conservation area. Last year, Malaysia declared that there were no more Sumatran rhinos in the wild. Since 2006, an experienced field team from World Wildlife Fund (WWF) Malaysia has been searching for rhino footprints. Tens of thousands of hours of footage have been recorded, but no trace of rhinos have been found. However, during a survey between Aug 16 and Aug 29 at the conservation area, WWF Sabah Terrestrial Conservation Programme manager Sharon Koh Pei Hui said the team spotted a 23cm-wide footprint that might be from a Sumatran rhino. Payne says it was inconceivable that a half-tonne mammal would leave a vague outline of a single footprint, with no other signs of its existence in the vicinity.

Sabah Wildlife Department director Augustine Tuuga says discussions with the department’s Indonesian counterpart was underway to cooperate on rhino breeding. He says government is committed to conserving the critically endangered species. “In-vitro fertilisation requires experts and high technology to increase the success rate. “For now, we are relying on expertise from Germany, and the cost for each fertilisation attempt is about RM300,000.” To support the effort, the Federal Government has allocated RM11.9 million for advanced reproductive technology for rhinos.

Read the article on NST Online : http://www.nst.com.my/news/2016/12/197796/critically-endangered-species-fewer-100-sumatran-rhinos-left

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.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4P_Nrw5JdDc[/youtube]

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!

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8D3thlM7Ugk[/youtube]

______________

Special thanks to the Cincinnati Zoo and Botanical Garden for the use of photos and videos

JAKARTA, 11 December 2012. 

The aim to work together to save this rhino species which is nearing extinction was further cemented during a recent visit to the Way Kambas National Park Sumatran Rhino Sanctuary (SRS) in Lampung Province, Sumatra in Indonesia.

Globally, there are only 11 live Sumatran rhinos in managed breeding facilities namely in Way Kambas, Borneo Rhino Sanctuary (BRS) in Sabah and Cincinnati Zoo in USA, while the numbers in the wild are believed to be dwindling in a continuing trend, with less than 150 rhinos currently in existence.

The Sumatran rhino is Malaysia’s most endangered wildlife species, and very small wild populations are believed to exist only on the islands of Sumatra and Borneo.

Tun Musa Hitam and Erwin Arifin, Bupati of Lampung Timur District, exchange gifts at Way Kambas National Park, 4 November 2012

Yayasan Sime Darby (YSD), the philanthropic arm of the Sime Darby Group, has committed RM11.4 million over six years from 2009 towards efforts to breed the Sumatran rhinos at the BRS in Sabah.

Efforts to share and exchange technological, genetic and biological information and experience, and possibly even gametes (eggs and sperm), were among the discussion topics during the trip to SRS made by officials from the Borneo Rhino Alliance (BORA), Yayasan Sime Darby (YSD) and Yayasan Badak Indonesia (YABI).

The trip to the SRS by the officials was to see the new baby rhino, Andatu, born five months ago, and the first ever Sumatran rhino birth in captivity in Indonesia.

Led by YSD chairman Tun Musa Hitam, the delegation also made a courtesy call on Indonesian Forestry Minister Zulkifli Hasan in Jakarta, the day after the trip to Lampung.

Tun Musa said the Minister agreed that both parties could and should work together to breed the rhinos in managed sanctuaries, in order to increase the depleting population.

“We want to ride on the success of our Indonesian counterparts to breed the rhinos as we are also trying hard to do the same. We can learn from their experiences and collaborate.

“We need to have the endorsement of both the Indonesian and Malaysian governments for the exchange of information, biological materials and expertise.

Andatu, born 23 June 2012 at Sumatran Rhino Sanctuary in Way Kambas National Park, with his mother Ratu, who was captured from the wild near Way Kambas in 2005. Andatu’s father Andalas was born in Cincinnati Zoo in 2001. This success story supports the notions that the Sumatran rhino might be saved from extinction only through intensive care in fenced sanctuary conditions. And that collaboration between Indonesia and Malaysia with global zoos and research institutions will be needed in order to provide enough gametes (eggs and sperm) and the best reproductive technology.

“We should work on all areas of cooperation and consideration should also include exchange of rhinos,” he added. Andatu’s father, Andalas, was the first Sumatran rhino born in captivity after 112 years in 2001, in Cincinnati Zoo. He was paired with Ratu in 2009, at the Sumatran Rhinoceros Sanctuary within the Way Kambas National Park in Sumatra, Indonesia. Despite two consecutive miscarriages, Ratu delivered Andatu after a 16-month third and successful pregnancy.

Efforts are now underway at the BRS in Sabah for Puntung to conceive. She was airlifted from a solitary life on a hill range in the Tabin Wildlife Reserve on 25 December 2011, in a dramatic operation, as a mate for the male rhino Tam, who is also at the BRS facility. It is hoped that the duo would be able to produce an offspring to help save their species from impending extinction.

Puntung’s foot is believed to have been ripped off in a poacher’s snare trap when she was a small infant but, miraculously, the wound healed and she survived. However, she has problems with endometrial cysts in the lining of her womb, possibly as a result of long periods in the wild without reproductive activity. This problem is being addressed with the help of rhino reproductive experts from the Institute for Zoo and Wildlife Research in Berlin.

The BRS programme, initiated by the Sabah government in 2009, aims to prevent the extinction of the Sumatran rhino, the only wild species of rhino in Malaysia.

A Sumatran Rhino Crisis Summit themed “Last chance to act!” will be held in Singapore in April 2013 to bring together existing local experts and concerned people and others who have been involved with similarly endangered species in other parts of the world over the past few decades.

Among the success stories of bringing back other species “on the edge” of extinction include the Californian condor, black footed ferret, crested Ibis, red wolf, Indian rhino and white rhino, all of which nearly went extinct but are now increasing in numbers.

The Summit is also a global effort to save the rhinos from suffering the same fate as the now extinct Yangtze river dolphin (2007), the Javan rhino in Vietnam (2010), and the northern white rhino (extinct in the wild by 2008, but with a small number in captivity).

Read the original here

by John Payne

Humans are susceptible to the shifting baseline syndrome. We imagine that what we see from our childhood up to today is what is normal … what has been so for a long time, and what will be so for the foreseeable future. This view can be more dangerous to wildlife than poaching and habitat loss. It is a view that can lead to preventable extinctions, through faulty analysis and wrong actions to remedy the problem. What we see now is a small and essentially random snapshot of the panoply of history from, say, 20 million years ago to 100 years from now. For poor old Dicerorhinus (the Sumatran rhinoceros), a fifty year period of no decisions and wrong decisions is the problem.

In reality, Dicerorhinus is the Asian rhinoceros. Only 5,000 years ago, the species was present throughout Southeast Asia including what is now central China. Rhinos are not equatorial rainforest specialists. In fact, equatorial rainforest is probably a poor habitat for Dicerorhinus: poor quality and sparse food, leached soils depleted in minerals, and too hot and humid for a bulky, large mammal to be comfortable. It has ended up in these marginal habitats at the very southern end of its range, in Sumatra and Borneo, from about 1,000 years ago, through various historical sequences of events, not least the 100 meter rise in sea level between 18,000 to 7,000 years ago, and the 2,000 year old madness of the Chinese belief that rhino horn has medicinal properties.

A glance through the sparse literature on Sumatran rhino from the 1930s to 1970s clearly shows that the species was by that time in deep trouble: very few individuals, widely scattered in separate forest blocks in four or five nations, generally with fewer than ten or so individuals in any one place. A prior millennium or more of hunting to supply horns for Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) was the main reason for this accelerating decline. Clearly, the problem to be addressed by the 1980s was not of excessive mortality, which had already happened, but of the Allee effect: very low Sumatran rhino population density everywhere, very few rhinos, and not enough breeding to reverse the trajectory towards extinction. The answer should have been obvious: launch a single programme of captive breeding in managed, fenced facilities to increase population density of fertile adults, boost birth rate and address the inevitable inbreeding depression developing in each isolated cluster. Similar concepts had worked for the white rhino in South Africa, for both species of bison and for the musk-ox, many decades earlier. But what should have been obvious was not to be. Only a few people wrote about the situation clearly, notably Tom Foose, Conservation Coordinator of the American Association of Zoological Parks and Aquariums from 1981 to 1990.

The fate of Dicerorhinus was sealed on 4 October 1984, when a compromise was reached among 20 of the world’s then designated Sumatran rhino experts and government representatives from Indonesia, Peninsular Malaysia and Sabah. At an IUCN-brokered meeting in Singapore on Sumatran rhino, the executive director of the Species Survival Commission and meeting facilitator valiantly and diplomatically did his best to reach a strong conclusion. Unfortunately, among the 20 persons present, there was a body of opinion, led vociferously by two elderly European professors, that all Sumatran rhinos should stay put in the wild. The compromise reached was that where rhinos were in protected areas, or anywhere showing signs of breeding, they should be left alone, and only “doomed” rhinos would be captured for ex situ breeding purposes.

The fatal flaw in this compromise became apparent in 2000, when Nan Schaffer of SOS Rhino pointed out that at least 70% of the 23 females captured between 1984 and 1994 (11 in Sumatra, 10 in Malaya and 2 in Borneo) suffered from reproductive tract pathologies at or soon after time of capture, a feature that prevented or hindered pregnancy. The subsequent scattering of captured rhinos between facilities in five barely-collaborating regions added to the inevitable failure of this programme. It is essential to understand that this first captive breeding programme failed because of a fatal constraint in the criteria for capture (namely selection of old, infertile and sub-fertile breeding stock), coupled with multiple weaknesses in execution, and not because the original concept was wrong.

Fast forward to 2019 and we see “new” ideas and new people. In fact, the “new” ideas are a replay of the early 1980s. Many of the people involved in Sumatran rhinos now, including high profile people in positions of directing policy, seem doomed to repeat the mistakes of 35 years ago.

I quote here from the minutes of the 4 October 1984 meeting, the words of the late Tom Foose : “Zoos in North America and Europe have experience and expertise in the management and breeding of three Rhinoceros species, Indian, White, and Black Rhino. They have active research programs on exotic species in reproductive technology including artificial insemination, embryo transfer, and cryopreservation. Transfer of this technology is possible but will take time”.

Wise words, ignored by the 1984 decision-makers. Then, there were several hundreds of Sumatran rhinos alive in the world, many obviously fertile breeding animals, some in sites easy to carry out captures. Now, there are fewer than 50 Sumatran rhinos, with perhaps about five or so breeding females left alive. And a new generation of advisers who seem frozen to a standstill.

Sumatran rhino has been ill-served, right up to today, by people in key positions, who not only lack knowledge and understanding, but have jostled to suppress those who do, and prevented a single targeted leadership role to allow for a genus recovery programme.

So, do we give up?

No. Our lessons (ignored so many times) are the white rhino (paradoxically, close to extinction in 1890 but much safer now, despite noise to the contrary), the European bison (down to 27 individuals in 1927, bred from 12 animals) and the team led by Thomas Hildebrandt and Cesare Galli (the people kept out of Indonesia by the International Rhino Foundation), who in June 2019, transferred a test tube white rhino embryo into a female whose eggs were fertilized in vitro.

The array of “protected areas” that the Earth will end up with a few decades from now, due to a surfeit of Homo sapiens, are TOO FEW, TOO SMALL, TOO SCATTERED, AND OF MARGINAL SUITABILITY for almost all endangered species.  Whether we like it or not, some endangered species will be saved from extinction only if private land owners play a role, in allocating space and resources to help sustain breeding of those species, so that the fate of the Sumatran rhino is not played out again and again. Who are the private land owners? They can be anyone. But three stand out in the context of Malaysia and Indonesia : oil palm plantations, industrial wood plantations and zoos.

We also need always to remember : wildlife will survive only if we can imagine how populations can be sustained and, if necessary, actively managed in the long term. Wild animal welfare programmes are noble and needed, but are usually marginal and rarely relevant to a species population conservation programme.

The overall lesson that needs to be learned from the fiasco of the Sumatran rhino is :  the need for thinking by experienced practitioners, to convince governments to put in place rational, long-term, big picture species-specific programmes designed save other endangered species.

Beginning the paradigm shift

The first thing to do is to acknowledge and embrace the idea that, while traditional “protected areas” (such as national parks and wildlife sanctuaries) are essential to conserving wild species, they will never be sufficient to save all species from extinction. In much of the “western” world, due primarily to a long history of forest loss and allocation of land to private interests, privately-owned lands play a key role in nature conservation. But this scenario tends not to apply in the equatorial regions, where tropical rainforests are most prominent. Both Malaysia and Indonesia have a tradition (from the colonial era) of separating (on the one hand) forests, biodiversity, protected areas and government as one conceptual clump, and (on the other hand) business, corporations, land titles, leases, plantations, and private enterprise as a different clump. There is also, of course, a third clump, of indigenous people and rural communities, but we will leave these out of the discussion here.

To save as much biodiversity as possible, the second clump has to play a role. While many, probably most, rainforest species of plants, animals, fungi and micro-organisms need forest as their habitat, there are some that do not. Those that do not include rare large animal species. These are the ones with which to start. The most significant way in which land-owners and lease-holders other than governments, therefore, can play a role is to allocate portions of their land to conservation. If thought out carefully and practically, even small portions of titled or leased land can have disproportionately huge positive impacts of saving rare species. The days of automatically moving all wild animals out of plantations, of getting governments and NGOs to do the work at other peoples’ expense, and giving donations to NGOs to perform “projects” that have no long-term purpose, are numbered. And the number of those days should not be large.

One of the pioneers in this new paradigm is PONGO Alliance (www.pongoalliance.org), a partnership of visionary oil palm growers and conservation practitioners, which aims to assist oil palm growers to achieve their mandated sustainability goals by “making resilient landscapes for wildlife and people a reality”.

The initial ground engagement of this new initiative is in the lower Kinabatangan region of eastern Sabah, Malaysia. Here, PONGO Alliance aims to restore a much-depleted wild orangutan population (formerly around 8,000, now around 800 individuals). The region has about 42,000 ha of protected but highly fragmented forests. Much of the rest of the area was converted to oil palm monoculture 20-40 years ago and many estates are now undergoing second planting. The current orangutan population is at a critically tipping point such that without oil palm industry cooperation, viability of this critically endangered and fully protected species in the wild is not assured in the long term.

Female orangutans live in communities of related females and are intolerant of unrelated females, so simply relocating a female from her current location elsewhere is not a definite solution. Because females have been preferentially lost during land conversion, any remaining female still residing on her ancestral land is of critical genetic value to the species. Males require access across agricultural landscapes between now fragmented protected forests and any remaining natural forests on private lands.

To best serve both an industry and a species that is too often misrepresented by incendiary and polarising special interest groups, PONGO Alliance engages industry with a holistic, and non-judgemental approach on an individual basis, company by company and even estate by estate.

By working together, PONGO Alliance aims to arrive at creative and collaborative solutions to create a paradigm shift in agricultural practice that reframes the oil palm industry as one that supports rather than destroys orangutan habitat.

With ongoing implementation of Malaysian Sustainable Palm Oil (MSPO) and Roundtable of Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) standards in Sabah, the time is right to help support orangutans to survive and breed in the mixed oil palm and forest landscape. Land along rivers, on steep slopes and non-productive swamps can be used to increase orangutan habitat within plantations. This is done by planting the most important orangutan food plants, either under old oil palms that are not intended for replanting, or on cleared land. There are many plants favoured by orangutans as food, but two sorts stand out as of great significance: Figs and lianas.  Lianas, particularly those of the legume family, supply a big proportion of the protein requirements of wild orangutans, which feed on their shoots, leaves, bark and fruits.

The magic of ficus

The most fundamental biological requirement of all animals is food and water. In the context of Malaysia and Indonesia, we could imagine under a different array of historical and current human attitudes that Sumatran rhinos could live in oil palm plantations, feeding on woody weeds, with wild cattle feeding on the grasses, together avoiding the need for herbicides. That is unlikely to happen now, but we can imagine other scenarios where plantations can play a role in conserving other rare wildlife species.

A typical strangling fig

One of the most interesting plant genera in Borneo is Ficus. Commonly known as fig in English, ara in Malay and Indonesian, and nunuk in Sabah, there are over 150 species in Borneo, including tall trees, small trees, stranglers (hemiepiphytes if you are a botanist), epiphytes and climbers. A fig “fruit” is actually an arrangement of many small flowers within a receptacle, known as a syconium, but for convenience we call them fruit. Ficus is “keystone”, meaning a genus that has a disproportionately large effect on the functioning of its natural environment relative to its abundance. The main importance of Ficus lies in the fact that in any one area, there are almost always a few or many Ficus plants bearing fruits, and the fruits are eaten by many mammal and bird species. The young leaves are also eaten by some wildlife, including orangutans.

Borneo Rhino Alliance started planting Ficus in 2012, as a means to supply leaves to the rhinos, which favour Ficus leaves as food over many other kinds of plants. At that time, it was imagined that there would be several rhinos living in the Borneo Rhino Sanctuary facilities in Tabin Wildlife Reserve. Sadly, that was not to be. There were probably only four or five rhinos still alive in Sabah at that time, and three were already in captivity at Tabin. Now, BORA has living, planted Ficus of over 30 species on land occupied by the rhino food garden and old rhino facilities.

A significant feature of Ficus is that planting materials can be propagated vegetatively, without the need to wait for, harvest and plant seeds. Vegetative propagation is simpler and quicker than production of seedlings from seeds. Two vegetative propagation methods can be used : marcots (also known as air layering) and cuttings with application of rooting hormone. If marcots or cuttings are taken from mature fig plants and planted out as if they are seedlings, fruiting will occur much sooner in the planted-out marcot or cutting.

Marcot ready to be cut and planted

Trials are ongoing to seek optimum details of propagation methods, as well as requirements of the various species, and matching of species to sites.

What BORA offers

BORA can supply marcots or cuttings of many of the species now being grown in Tabin, each ready for planting, in a soil-compost matrix in black plastic bags. Orders should be placed in advance. Prices range from RM20 to RM50 per plant, depending on species (some are more difficult to propagate than others) and size. Sales come with advice, if needed, on optimum planting and maintenance methods.

Ficus saplings in polybags

BORA also offers short, customised courses on how to produce marcots.

Focus marcot Planting ficus marcots onto old oil palm Naturally seeded ficus on oil palm Preparing ficus marcots for planting

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS AND CONTACTS

BORA thanks Quentin Phillipps for his outstanding contribution to Ficus identification in the field (https://borneoficus.info/) and for supporting us via the Borneo Fig Project; and PONGO Alliance for providing the impetus to pursue development of the nursery at Tabin Wildlife Reserve, with an emphasis on Ficus and vegetative propagation.

Contact : John Payne ([email protected]) or Dr Zainal Zahari Zainuddin ([email protected])

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.

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.

Gelegub 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Laurentius also commented that Gelegub is already too old for natural mating. However, extensive examination has been carried out on her by local and foreign experts and they believe that she would still be able to produce viable eggs which could then be fertilized with the semen collected by the male rhino kept captive at Tabin.

The male rhino presently residing at the facility is known as Kertam. He added that for the fertilization works to take place, both female and male rhinos must be kept close to each other.

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.