Wednesday, June 14, 2006

First pic of rhino in Sabah's wild

Kota Kinabalu: A motion-triggered camera trap set up in a remote jungle has captured the first-ever photo of a rhino in the wild in Sabah, the State Wildlife Department and WWF-Malaysia announced Tuesday.

The camera trapping activity was part of rhino conservation efforts, which include the "Rhino Rescue" project funded by Honda Malaysia with key input from WWF-Malaysia. It was launched earlier this year in Sabah and Peninsular Malaysia.

This project aims to boost Sumatran rhino protection through activities such as studies on the animal's needs, preventing poaching and habitat conservation.

The rhino photographed in the wild is believed to be one of a population of as few as 13 whose existence was confirmed during a field survey last year in the interior forests of Sabah, part of an area known as the "Heart of Borneo." A handful of rhinos are thought to survive in addition to the 13, scattered across Sabah but isolated from each other.

The rhinos found on Borneo are regarded as a subspecies of the Sumatran rhinoceros, which means they have different physical characteristics from rhinos found in Sumatra (Indonesia) and Peninsular Malaysia.

"This is an encouraging sign for the future of rhinoceros conservation work in Sabah," said Mahedi Andau, Director of the State Wildlife Department.

"While the total number of Borneo rhinos remaining is uncertain, we do know there are very, very few. To capture a photo of one just a few months after placing camera traps in the area is extraordinary."

The rhinos in Sabah spend their lives in dense jungle where they are rarely seen, which accounts for the lack of any previous photographs of them in the wild.

Conservationists hope the population of at least 13 found last year is viable and would be able to reproduce if protected from poaching.

A full-time rhino monitoring team, funded by Honda Malaysia, was established at the end of 2005 in Sabah to monitor the rhinos and their habitat and keep poachers away. The team set up the camera traps in February. Camera traps are remotely activated by infrared triggers when animals walk by.

"These are very shy animals that are almost never seen alive in the wild," said Raymond Alfred, WWF-Malaysia's Asian Rhinoceros and Elephant Action Strategy (AREAS) Project Manager.

"Based on the photo, we can tell this is a mature and healthy individual thanks to the availability of plentiful, good-quality forage in the forest. We hope to take more photos over the coming months of other rhinos so we can piece together clues about this tiny, precarious population."

The Sumatran rhinoceros is one of the world's most critically endangered species. In Borneo, there have been no confirmed reports of the species apart from those in Sabah for almost 20 years, leading experts to fear that rhinos may now be extinct on the rest of the island.

The main threats to the last rhinos in Sabah are poaching - its horn and virtually all of its body parts are valuable on the black market - and loss of its forested habitat due to conversion of the land to other uses.

WWF-Malaysia is working with the Sabah Foundation and the State Wildlife Department to establish a "Rhinoceros and Orang-utan Research Programme Centre" in the Heart of Borneo forest area to bolster the rhino monitoring and research work in that area. Supporters of WWF-Malaysia's rhino conservation work include Honda Malaysia and US Fish and Wildlife Service.

Source: Daily Express

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