Sabah relocates elephant away from people

A young elephant trumpets in the Lower Kinabatangan Wildlife Sanctuary. Their home is highly fragmented leading to conflict with humans. - Picture by HUTAN/Dzulirwan @ Jolirwan bin Takasi

KOTA KINABALU, Feb 27 — A young male Bornean elephant was recently relocated from the Sabah east coast to the Lok Kawi Wildlife Centre to prevent conflicts with human population that has encroached on the habitat of Sabah’s remaining 1,500 elephants, the Sabah Wildlife Department (SWD) said.

The SWD said although Sabah retains about 49 per cent of its permanent forest cover and is the second biggest state in Malaysia, a lack of habitat for its unique wildlife is leading to more human elephant conflicts.

“Sabah is blessed with wonderful wildlife from orang-utans, rhinos, elephants, sun bears, clouded leopards that are unique to this State but we have a forest that is broken up by agriculture without corridors linking them and this leads to conflict,” said SWD director Laurentius Ambu in a statement today.

In the latest case handled by the Department a young male elephant had to be removed from the East Coast and sent to Lok Kawi Wildlife Park for its own safety.

Sandakan wildlife officer Roland O. Niun said the elephant entered the plantation next to the Tangkulap Forest Reserve last December searching for food close to the dwellings of plantation workers.

“He was looking for plants like banana trees, yams and coconuts but in the process he damaged the water tank and fencing. Naturally, the plantation workers did their best to keep him away but this can lead to a dangerous situation for both the elephant and the people,” said Roland.

A baby elephant and its mother in the Lower Kinabatangan Wildlife Sanctuary. Their home is highly fragmented leading to conflict with humans. - Picture by HUTAN/Dzulirwan @ Jolirwan bin Takasi

The decision was then made to capture him for translocation to another area, however once he was captured the SWD was able to identify him as an elephant that was previously translocated for causing similar conflict the month before.

“When we realised he was the same elephant we had captured December, 10th 2009 along Kilometre 18 of the Beluran Road and translocated to Tangkulap we knew that moving him somewhere else would led to the same conflict,” explained Roland.

Roland also stressed that such behaviour was not common among Sabah’s gentle elephants but seem to be increasing over the last three to five years due to development of the natural habitat without providing for forest corridors. A decision was then made to move him to the Lok Kawi Wildlife Park for humane reasons as the alternative would be to put him to sleep.

“This issue is not new and will only become more and more common unless we address the underlying problem which is being faced by all of Sabah’s wildlife which is the lack of connectivity between their different habitat range. People also need to understand that unless this is settled and private companies make real efforts to reforest corridors we will reach the stage of having to put down these gentle creatures,” Laurentius added.

Unfortunately, the SWD expects that human elephant conflict will continue to increase with the next five to ten years.

“Even if serious efforts are made for forest corridors we will still have to manage human elephant conflict in the interim. In fact, there is an urgent need for a Rapid Response Rescue and translocation team to be set up to deal with his issue which is why we are currently working with the private sector to establish such a team,” he said.

The setting up of such a team is extremely costly as rescuing and translocating a single elephant can cost up to RM100,000 or more.

The Bornean Elephant is a distinct sub-species from the Asian Elephant and is only found in Sabah, although some individuals roam in Northern Kalimantan (Indonesia). This makes Sabah the sole custodian of this unique sub-species of elephant.

In Sabah they are protected under the Wildlife Conservation Enactment of 1997. The unlawful killing of an elephant carries a fine of RM50,000 or a jail term of five years or both under Section 25 (3) (b) under the Enactment. However, it also provides that the SWD is allowed to put down individuals as it sees fit to control the population.

“Today, we estimate that they are fewer than 1,500 individuals left in Sabah and we take their protection and survival very seriously,” according to Laurentius.