New Straits Times 19 Feb 14;
KOTA KINABALU: Two elephants, part of a herd of 30 that had repeatedly entered a central Sabah village and destroyed crops, have been caught by Wildlife Rescue Unit rangers.
The two female elephants include the herd's matriarch. They were subdued after being shot with tranquillisers yesterday. Efforts are underway to translocate both animals to the Deramakot Forest Reserve where they came from.
Wildlife Rescue Unit rangers had approached the herd to chase it off in Kampung Bauto, 12km from Telupid, on Monday. The matriarch elephant was aggressive, defensive and threatened the rangers.
Since last week, the herd has been entering the village and destroying villagers' bananas and oil palm trees. Some of the elephants even ventured close to the villagers' homes.
Though sightings of the elephants began last month, the villagers claimed the herd had recently become more destructive.
Some believe a depleting habitat may have forced the herd to step out of their original habitat and venture to the village, located along the main Kota Kinabalu-Sandakan road, and 200km from here.
Sabah Tourism, Culture and Environment Minister Datuk Seri Masidi Manjun said the case had given the government more reason to create more wildlife sanctuaries and establish corridors linking pockets of forests to allow wildlife to roam in a bigger area.
"If they have no place to roam, they feel their natural habitat is threatened and what you see may just have been a normal reaction of the elephants (venturing into human populated areas)," Masidi said.
He added that there was a need for the authorities to work with communities who lived near wildlife habitats.
"We will give priority to the safety of the villagers but at the same time it is important for them to learn to co-exist with the wildlife."
He said that with the two elephants subdued, the rest would return to its habitat. Masidi said once the threat posed by the herd was contained, the department would find out why the animals had acted that way.
Sabah wildlife rangers stop rampaging herd of 30 pygmy elephants
Muguntan Vanar The Star 19 Feb 14;
KOTA KINABALU: Wildlife rangers have quelled the threat from a rampaging herd of 30 pygmy elephants that were terrorising a village in Sabah's central region of Telupid over the last three days.
Rangers from the Wildlife Rescue Unit tranquillised two female members of the herd, prior to translocating the two into a the neighbouring Dermakot Forest reserve, in the hope the rest of the herd will make their way back into the forest.
The herd rampaged through Kampung Bauto, causing massive damage to oil palm, banana and other fruit trees planted by villagers, causing substantial losses to the farming community.
Rangers said that the herd was led by a very dominant and wild matriarch that was not deterred by loud noises and fires lit by the Sabah Wildlife Department's elephant control team.
"This group of elephants was very determined to go into the village and feed on banana trees and young oil palm plants," said senior wildlife ranger Richard Jaikim.
"They seemed to target the food trees in the village and were not scared off by warning shots fired in the air," Jaikim said, adding that they then called in the Wildlife Rescue Team to assist.
Sandakan district wildlife officer Rashid Saburi said that the decision was made to tranquillise the matriarch and the other large female leading the herd.
Sabah Wildlife department assistant director Dr Sen Nathan said that they would place a GPS collar provided by the Danau Girang field centre, on the matriarch to monitor the movement of the herd.
"Though we will try to translocate them as far as possible into the forest, there is no guarantee that they will stay away as elephant habitats are shrinking fast and increasingly fragmented due to human encroachment," Nathan added.
Growing concern on whether mothers of rescued elephant calves were poisoned
Muguntan Vanar The Star 19 Feb 14;
KOTA KINABALU: A concern is growing on whether the mothers of two rescued Borneo Pygmy female elephant calves found wandering in two plantations on Feb 12 were poisoned.
Wildlife rangers have been combing areas to locate the whereabouts of the elephant cows and their herd but have yet to locate any of the herd in the Kinabatangan area.
Amid the spectre of last year's gruesome poisoning deaths of 14 elephants at Gunung Rara forest with only a calf surviving, the latest recovery of two calves is raising questions whether their mothers might have been poisoned in efforts to stop the herds from marauding farms or plantations.
One possibility is that calves were separated from their herd when people or plantation workers tried to shoo them away or in the worst case scenario might been victims of poisoning.
"We really do not know what has happened to the mothers of these babies," Sabah Wildlife Department director Datuk Laurentius Ambu said on Wednesday.
Ambu said rescued calves were in healthy condition and gaining weight at the care of the Sepilok wildlife medical care in Sandakan.
Ambu said human-elephant conflicts in Sabah have seen a dramatic rise in the past couple of years with number of elephants being killed and poisoned in on an upwards trend.
“We would like to advise all farmers and plantation owners not to take the law in their hands by injuring or killing the elephants.
“We will prosecute anybody because the Bornean elephant is now a totally protected species. We urge everyone to notify us if there are such elephant intrusions in their farms or estates," Ambu said.
The two calf elephants were found in separate locations in Kinabatangan - first a two week old they named Jimbo was found at a plantation located in Sg. Lokan after receiving a report made by the plantation manager.
Workers found him by the river and transferred moved him to elsewhere as the workers were afraid that a crocodile might attack him.
The second one-year-old calve named Tun Tan, was found in a plantation near Sukau and followed a tractor driven by a plantation worker back to the kongsi area where rangers picked it up.
Meanwhile, wildlife rangers expect by Thursday to carry out the trans location of two "fierce'' elephant cows with a herd of about 30 elephants that trampled into farmlands at Kg Buarto close to the Tungkalap Forest reserve in Telupid.
Wildlife Department assistant director Dr Sen Nathan said that they hoped to the two female elephants into Dermakot Forest Reserve which is linked to Tungkalap.
The remaining herd would be guided back into Tungkalap reserve, he said, adding that the situation was under control.
Jumbo task for Sabah rangers
The Star 21 Feb 14;
KOTA KINABALU: A herd of about 30 elephants that rampaged a village in Sabah’s central Telupid region three days ago have begun returning to their natural habitat at the Tangkalung forest reserve, says the state Wildlife Department.
Department assistant director Dr Sen Nathan, who is monitoring the movement, said rangers had to restrain two of the herd’s more aggressive females.
The two females were tranquillised on Tuesday because they kept charging at the rangers.
Dr Sen said two lorries had been arranged to transport the two elephants to the Dermakot forest reserve.
“Rangers have been monitoring the rest of the herd at Kampung Bauto, about 300km from here. Some of the members of the herd have left the village and are heading into the forest about 15km away,” he said yesterday.
He said the rangers expected the elephants to return to the forest while the two females were being moved to Dermakot.
“We need to send the two females deeper into the forest as they are too aggressive and can pose a problem to villagers and plantations,” he added.
Wildlife officials have warned that there was an increase in human-elephant conflict due to the shrinking natural habitat.
Meanwhile, state Tourism, Culture and Environment Minister Datuk Masidi Manjun said his ministry planned to come up with a long-term mitigation solution to the problem.
