(MY) Satellite tracking for Bornean Pygmy elephants

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Satellite tracking reveals threats to Borneo pygmy elephants

Posted: 10 Aug 2007

 

*A new WWF study tracking pygmy elephants by satellite shows that the

remaining herds of this endangered species, which live only on the island of

Borneo, are under threat from habitat loss and forest fragmentation.*

 

Bornean Pygmy elephant (Elephas maximus borneensis), mother with calf.

The Bornean pygmy elephants are found only in the northeast tip of Borneo,

in the Malaysian state of Sabah.

Photo © WWF / Cede PRUDENTE According to the study, Borneo pygmy elephants

depend for their survival on forests situated on flat, low lands and in

river valleys, the study found. Unfortunately, it is also the type of

terrain preferred for commercial oil palm, rubber and timber plantations.

 

Over the past four decades, 40 per cent of the forest cover of the Malaysian

State of Sabah (in the northeast of Borneo where most of pygmy elephants

are) has been lost to logging, conversion for plantations and human

settlement.

 

" The areas that these elephants need to survive are the same forests where

the most intensive logging in Sabah has taken place, because flat lands and

valleys incur the lowest costs when extracting timber, " said Raymond Alfred,

Head of WWF-Malaysia's Borneo Species Programme.

 

" However, the Malaysian government's commitment to retain extensive forest

habitat throughout central Sabah, under the Heart of Borneo agreement,

should ensure that the majority of the herds have a home in the long term. "

 

The Heart of Borneo initiative is a conservation and sustainable development

programme aimed at conserving the last large expanse of contiguous forest on

Borneo. The Heart of Borneo covers 240,000km2 of rainforest that straddles

the border between Brunei Darussalam, Indonesia and Malaysia. In February

2007, the ministers of these three Bornean governments signed an historic

declaration to conserve and sustainably manage the Heart of Borneo.

 

*Satellite tracking*

 

The WWF study, the largest using satellite collars ever attempted on Asian

elephants, suggests that pygmy elephants prefer lowland forests because

there is more food of better quality on fertile lowland soils.

 

Dr Christy Williams of WWF putting a radio collar on a Bornean Pygmy

elephant. The collar has a GPS and a satellite unit.

Photo © WWF / A. Christy WILLIAMS

But the study also shows that elephants' movements are noticeably affected

by human activities and forest disturbance. Data gathered so far reveals

there are probably not more than 1,000 pygmy elephants left in Sabah ?less

than the 1,600 or so estimated previously.

 

One important area for the elephants, the Lower Kinabatangan Wildlife

Sanctuary, may be too small and too fragmented to support a viable

population in the long term.

 

Five pygmy elephants were darted and outfitted with collars two years ago by

the Sabah Wildlife Department with WWF assistance. The collars sent GPS

locations to a WWF computer via satellite as often as once a day.

 

" Satellite tracking is clearly one of the most effective ways of obtaining

information on wild elephants in Sabah because they spend so much time

inside the forest, " said Mahedi Andau, Director of the Sabah Wildlife

Department. " We now have a good idea of the home range, size and location of

some individual elephant herds. "

 

WWF and the Sabah Wildlife Department will collar another 4 elephant groups

this year, and the information gathered from the tracking will be used to

provide additional and more specific information towards elephants

conservation in Sabah.

 

*To download the report, go

here<http://assets.panda.org/downloads/stpe_1wwf.pdf>

*

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