Kristy Inus New Straits Times 10 Jan 12;
A BORNEO Elephant Wildlife Sanctuary will be established on a 2,000-hectare site in Kinabatangan as a refuge for elephants and other wildlife affected by land clearance activities in Sabah.
Sabah Wildlife Department (SWD) and Malaysian Palm Oil Council (MPOC) yesterday inked a Memorandum of Understanding to enable this initiative, which consists of an elephant/wildlife rescue facility and a research and education division, with manpower working on rescue and translocation operations.
The MoU was one of the five signed during the opening ceremony of the two-day Sabah Wildlife Conservation Colloquium 2012, which was launched by Plantation Industries and Commodities Minister Tan Sri Bernard Dompok.
SWD director Dr Laurentius Ambu, who signed the MoU with MPOC chairman Datuk Lee Yeow Chor, said MPOC would allocate an initial funding of RM5 million while several non-governmental organisations from Japan also made a pledge of RM1.5 million.
"Work to set up the sanctuary has already started, including soil survey, initial master planning and levelling of land," he said after the signing ceremony.
"This sanctuary can hold 15 to 20 elephants at a time. There are 60 to 100 elephants waiting to be rescued from remote areas in Sabah like Kalabakan. So you can see how important the sanctuary is for elephants that are outside totally protected areas."
He said the elephants were within plantations or fragmented forest reserves, where they were displaced and had problems migrating or getting from one place to another.
"We may not be able to accommodate all of them, but will try to bring in elephants or wildlife which are injured and eventually release them once they are healthy. We will try to find some place for them," said Dr Laurentius.
The Borneo Pygmy elephants, which are endemic to Borneo, are smaller than other Asian elephants and are found mainly in Sabah. Their population is estimated at about 2,100 to 2,200 to date.
On whether they expected breeding in captivity at the new sanctuary for the Borneo Pygmy elephants, Dr Laurentius said: "One of our objectives will be research and we are expecting breeding to happen .... the area is also a natural area where breeding can take place."
To date, SWD has recorded three elephants bred and born in captivity since 2008 at the Lok Kawi Wildlife Park, a rehabilitation centre managed by the department.
On whether the department would consider relocating the bull elephant that gored a 26-year-old Australian to death to the new sanctuary, Dr Laurentius said they had not been able to locate the elephant due to the vast size of the land in Tabin Wildlife reserve.
In early December, Sydney-based veterinarian Jenna O'Grady Donley died of injuries from the first such fatal attack in Sabah.
