Rare images captured in the wild

Rare images captured in the wild
By : Roy Goh
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The mother elephant guiding her month-old baby along the banks of the Kinabatangan River. — Pictures courtesy of Dr Benoit Goossens
The mother elephant guiding her month-old baby along the banks of the Kinabatangan River. — Pictures courtesy of Dr Benoit Goossens

KOTA KINABALU: Scientists doing research in the jungles of Sabah have recently returned with some exciting photographs.

An image of the Sumatran rhino taken by a motion triggered camera.
An image of the Sumatran rhino taken by a motion triggered camera.
One was a picture of the rare Sumatran rhinocerous captured with a motion triggered camera, while the other was a series of images of two adult elephants helping a month-old calf across a river.

Sabah Wildlife Department director Laurentius Ambu said both achievements would go a long way in efforts to preserve the two rare and endangered species in the Sabah jungles.

"Monitoring and protection of the animals through the research work done by scientists can boost their number as it helps deter poachers and secure habitat from further degradation and illegal encroachment."

The image of the Sumatran rhino, taken from its rear, is the second made in the wild and this time it was by scientists Ross Jo and Andrew Hearn who are studying the Bornean-clouded leopard under the Global Canopy Programme, which is based in the UK.
The first image was captured in 2006, of a young male, while the recent one was that of a female.

Meanwhile, Conservation Biologist Nurzhafarina Othman, from the Danau Girang Field Centre in Kinabatangan said the photographs provided valuable details on the family structure and group dynamics of the Bornean pygmy elephants.

Nurzhafarina, who is working together with the Elephant Conservation Unit (co-founded by French NGO HUTAN and Sabah Wildlife Department) in the study said the data collected in turn would assist the Sabah Wildlife Department (SWD) in managing the Kinabatangan elephant population.

"These photographs for example, show a lot about the caring behaviour of the elephants as the mother, and another female assumed to be related to the baby, working very hard to protect and safely bring the baby over to the other side of the bank."

The series of pictures were taken by Nurzhafarina's PhD supervisor, conservation geneticist Dr Benoit Goossens.

"Because the group was tracking the three elephants with satellite collars on the animals in July, we knew that the elephants were in the area, so I was able to track them from the river," he said.

Hundreds of Borneo aborigines forced from their homes

Hundreds of Borneo aborigines forced from their homes

KUALA LUMPUR: The authorities have forcibly evicted hundreds of families from villages in the Bintulu district of Sarawak in Borneo in the past year, claims Sahabat Alam Malaysia.

Sahabat Alam Malaysia council member Mohideen Abdul Kader said the Forest Department and Land and Survey Department had issued licences to convert the land and forests in the area to plantations without obtaining the consent of the communities who have native customary rights (NCR).

Glyn Ingang, 32, from Kampung Mejau in Tatau, said they were only offered compensation of RM250 per hectare and had not agreed to give up their land.

“There are 80 families in my village, and the concessionaires or the contractors just come in like that to demolish our longhouses and evict us.

“My ancestors have been staying here for hundreds of years, long before Malaysia was even formed,” he said.

Bagong Swee, 49, from Kampung Sebungan in Sebauk, said the rubber trees which were cultivated by the locals were chopped down by workers, leaving them with no source of income.

“They even polluted our river, and we can’t even use it to bathe as our skin will get itchy. Now, we only drink rain water,” he said, adding that more than 250 families were affected.

Bagong said the concessionaires had started an oil palm plantation on the land, and he said the villagers might have to resort to ‘harvesting’ their oil palm and selling them to survive.

Marai Sengok, 27, from Kampung Binyo, said besides tearing down their longhouses and food storage huts, the workers had also destroyed their crops with pesticides.

“We can only stand and watch as they tear down our homes, as they are always accompanied by armed policemen,” he said.

At a press conference here on Wednesday, Mohideen called for a Commission of Inquiry to be set up to probe into the logging and plantation industry in Sarawak.

“Sarawak must accord full recognition on the NCR - both on cultivated and forest areas. The enroachment of NCR land must be put to a stop,” he said.

He said it was disturbing that Sarawak Forest Department itself is the project proponent for one of the projects, involving 490,000ha of land.

He claimed the department had licensed out 2.8mil ha of largely forest land for 40 plantation concessions, mainly for oil palm and pulpwood trees, since 1997.

A wild world

Tigers can be found in the fauna-rich forests here- file picture
Tigers can be found in the fauna-rich forests here- file picture

FROM tigers to tapir, more than half the mammal species found in the country are present in Ulu Muda area.
Studies and surveys from a scientific expedition to the Ulu Muda Forest Reserve in March 2003 also found that these forests host six of 10 primate species and 42 of 54 reptile species.

The dense jungles are home to 78 % squirrel species, 53 percent bat species, 175 bird species, seven out of 10 hornbill species.

Scientists also found myriad river and lake fish and herds of elephants which make the reserve a major reservoir for wildlife.

The reserve itself is over 100,000 ha in size and is spread of the Sik, Padang Terap and Baling districsts, adjacent to Thailand in the northeast and Perak in the south.
The national importance of the Ulu Muda complex of forests was first highlighted by a WWF proposal for a Kedah Conservation Strategy in 1984, say papers in Hutan Simpan Ulu Muda, Kedah: Pengurusan, Persekitaran Fizikal dan Biologi, a publication of findings during the 2003 survey.

The area was also been identified as a critical area for conservation under the Economic Planning Unit's Malaysian National Conservation Strategy in 1993.

The strategy recommended that Ulu Muda be protected as a National or State park.

It has also been proposed as trans-frontier protected area as it lies on the Thai-Malaysia border.

In 1996, the National Ecotourism Plan recognized Ulu Muda as a potentially important nature tourism destination.

The forest here is also a storehouse of medical plants with surveys of just small sections uncovering about 56 species.

Orang utans to be extinct in 50 years

KOTA KINABALU: Sabah’s isolated orang utan population in lower Kinabatangan may become extinct in 50 years if no steps are taken urgently to set up wildlife corridor between fragmented forests.

Scientific journal Oryx in its latest publication said although the Kinabatangan population of 1,100 orang utans was more then enough for their survival but many of them were separated into small pockets of less then 250 animals.

It says much more work needs to be carried out to ensure the survival of the orang-utan. It also stresses that that the “pockets” of orang-utan population need a minimum number of 250 orang-utan individuals to survive in the long term.

“It is essential that conservation measures are taken to protect orang-utans outside national parks, and these measures will by necessity be specific to each region,” Oryx wrote in the newly released paper entitled “Distribution and conservation status of the orang-utan on Borneo and Sumatra: How many remain?”

Conservationists and scientists from 16 institutions, including Hutan, a French NGO, wrote the paper.

The Sabah Wildlife Department and Hutan have been studying orang-utan occurrence in protected and unprotected areas for a number of years.

Together with their partners they have engaged the landowners such as the Sabah Foundation, the Sabah Forestry Department as well as private landowners (mostly palm oil companies) in developing innovative conservation strategies to address the issue of orang-utans in unprotected areas.

Genetic modelling carried out by conservation geneticist Dr. Benoit Goossens of Cardiff University and Dr. Isabelle Lackman-Ancrenaz of HUTAN had shown that the majority of the isolated orang-utan populations in the Kinabatangan would go extinct in less than 50 years if nothing is done to reconnect the populations.

“Having ‘wildlife corridors’ linking isolated lots of forest that are home to orang-utan as well as other wildlife such as the Bornean pygmy elephants, are absolutely crucial to ensure that this wildlife continues to exist in the Kinabatangan,” said Dr Ancrenaz.

The paper also shows a study that reassessed orang-utan populations in Borneo and now finds that an estimated 75 percent of orang-utans in Kalimantan occur outside protected areas.


The Sabah Wildlife Department had in 2004 with HUTAN published a paper in the scientific journal, PLoS Biology that showed that 60 percent of orang-utans in Sabah live outside protected areas. The study was funded by the Danish International Development Agency (Danida).

It was a landmark paper for the world of orang-utan conservation as up to that point scientists in other areas of Borneo and Sumatra (the only two places in the world the orang-utan survive in the wild) were mostly studying and working on orang-utan populations within primary forests which were almost all protected areas, such as national parks.


Hutan has been working together with the Sabah Wildlife Department to develop and implement solutions to conserve the orang-utan in Sabah, Malaysia for the past 10 years.

Landslides mar Fraser's beauty

Landslides mar Fraser's beauty
By : Elizabeth John

The massive landslide that left a gaping hole in the side of the hill and severed the alternative road up to Fraser's Hill.


What's been keeping the alternate route up to scenic Fraser's Hill closed? A massive slope failure that makes for dramatic pictures and calls for a long, expensive bridge, ELIZABETH JOHN writes.


The Kuala Kubu Baru-Raub road which was also damaged by debris flow from the landslide that hit Route 148 above it.

WHAT is a yawning gap in Route 148 today began as a small landslide in December on this alternative road up to the popular holiday resort of Fraser's Hill.

The Public Works Department appointed a contractor to carry repairs but just a week later, another slope failed in the same spot and worsened for a time.

Now there is little choice but to build a bridge across the chasm, says the Slope Engineering branch, to reconnect the severed road.

The initial landslide was brought on by heavy rain and continued to grow with time, said branch director Datuk Dr Ashaari Mohamad.

The debris flow from the landslide was so bad it destroyed a portion of the Kuala Kubu Baru-Raub road, hundreds of metres downhill.

It had to be closed for repairs too.

The division has been carrying out several studies in the area since and is expected to start repair works soon.

"It will be a costly repair and a lot of work will have to be done to stabilise the slope.

"Soil investigation and design work has been carried out but the repairs will take time," said Ashaari.

The Kuala Kubu Baru-Raub road or Route 55 will most likely be opened to traffic by the end of next month. Preliminary repair works are being carried out now while a permanent solution to the problem is being sought.

Route 148 was opened in the mid-1990s in the hilly area that is prone to landslides.

On average, about 500 cars use that road a day.

"Probably at the time, people were not familiar with slope engineering or the complicated geology of the area."

Since its inception, the division has done a hazard and risk map for the road and many areas have been found to be at a high risk of landslides.

Ashaari said it would take a lot of money to carry out all the mitigation steps necessary.

It isn't just the Fraser's Hill alternative route that is getting the division's attention.

It has begun a major exercise to collect data on slopes along all roads in the country.

There is a list of high-risk slopes but it only includes those reported by district engineers, said Ashaari.

It will tell the division which ones require mitigation and maintenance work as well as the budget required for it.

The division is also carrying out a very detailed study of a 100sq km section of the Ampang-Hulu Kelang hills, which are highly prone to landslides.

The study will help build a hazard and risk map, which the division will use to advise the local council.

If the pilot project is successful, the division will carry out similar ones in landslide-prone areas in other states.

The project is likely to be completed by September, said Ashaari.

The division will also spend RM5 million over the next three years on public awareness, to educate the public, politicians and school children about landslides.

They launched the project last month in Selangor, Penang, Pahang, Perak and Sabah.

The campaigns teach people about how to identify risks and how to maintain their areas.

Big Foot spotted in Sarawak village

SIBU, FRI:

Is there a Big Foot in Sarawak? That’s the question now on everyone’s lips following the discovery of a pair of giant footprints in a Melanau village in Daro in the Mukah Division, about three hours by express boat from here.

The Borneo Post English daily and its sister Chinese language newspaper See Hua Daily News reported the find, footprints measuring 47 inches (119.38 cm) from heel to toe and 17 (43.18 cm) from side to side, on their front pages today.



They reported that a local businessman, Tan Soon Kuang, had claimed to have seen the footprints at the village which he declined to identify at the request of the villagers.


“They are clearly too gigantic to belong to any normal human being,” he was quoted as saying.


Tan had also said that the villagers had mixed feelings about the discovery.


Some were curious while others were scared, he said.


Nevertheless, he said, the villagers had cleared a footpath leading to the footprints in anticipation of more visitors over the weekend.


It would be “tough for a person to create such marks (footprints) on the hard ground”, said Tan.


A civil servant, who requested anonymity, said when contacted that he had seen the footprints but admitted that it was hard to say whether they were genuine without any scientific backing.

He said many people had been coming in the past few days to see the footprints. He also said that in the old days, certain people used the area for solitary meditation in the hope of getting whatever they desired from divine beings.


Jemoreng state assemblyman Abu Seman Jahwie said he had yet to see the footprints although he had heard of the discovery.


Malaysians were in the grip of Big Foot mania about three years ago after several people claimed to have seen a Big Foot family which had left footprints measuring up to 45 cm long in a forested area in Johor.

Single-horned 'Unicorn' deer found in Italy

y MARTA FALCONI, Associated Press Writer Wed Jun 11, 3:06 PM ET

ROME - A deer with a single horn in the center of its head — much like the fabled, mythical unicorn — has been spotted in a nature preserve in Italy, park officials said Wednesday.
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"This is fantasy becoming reality," Gilberto Tozzi, director of the Center of Natural Sciences in Prato, told The Associated Press. "The unicorn has always been a mythological animal."

The 1-year-old Roe Deer — nicknamed "Unicorn" — was born in captivity in the research center's park in the Tuscan town of Prato, near Florence, Tozzi said.

He is believed to have been born with a genetic flaw; his twin has two horns.

Calling it the first time he has seen such a case, Tozzi said such anomalies among deer may have inspired the myth of the unicorn.

The unicorn, a horse-like creature with magical healing powers, has appeared in legends and stories throughout history, from ancient and medieval texts to the adventures of Harry Potter.

"This shows that even in past times, there could have been animals with this anomaly," he said by telephone. "It's not like they dreamed it up."

Single-horned deer are rare but not unheard of — but even more unusual is the central positioning of the horn, experts said.

"Generally, the horn is on one side (of the head) rather than being at the center. This looks like a complex case," said Fulvio Fraticelli, scientific director of Rome's zoo. He said the position of the horn could also be the result of a trauma early in the animal's life.

Other mammals are believed to contribute to the myth of the unicorn, including the narwhal, a whale with a long, spiraling tusk.

MEET JOHNNY, THE TURTLE MAN

SANDAKAN, May 28 (Bernama) -- While Johnny Appleseed planted apple seeds in the American wilderness and greened the land, Johnny alias Hasbullah Buis is helping to keep the turtle population thriving in the island wildlife parks off Sabah.

Even after having worked for 23 years on Pulau Bakkungan Kechil, one of the three islands of the Pulau-Pulau Penyu Park, Johnny looks forward with enthusiasm to the dawn of a new day.

"I have never felt bored with my work because the important thhttp://www.blogger.com/img/gl.photo.gif
Add Imageing is that I am able to help safeguard the turtles which come to nest in this park," he told Bernama here.

Having started work as a park assistant in 1985, he has progressed into a research assistant whose field of work covers Pulau Bakkungan Kecil and the other two islands, Pulau Selingaan and Pulau Gulisaan, making up some 1,740 hectares.

Johnny's work covers tagging turtles, transferring turtle eggs to the hatchery, maintaining the turtle hatchery, and releasing baby turtles into the sea.

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SABAH-JOHNNY 2 (LAST) SANDAKAN

He said he has grown accustomed to living away from his family which occupies the staff quarters here. He is not alone on the island though. For company, he has seven other staff on Pulau Bakkungan Kechil, comprising a park ranger and six junior assistants.

Johnny said their place of work was close to the Malaysia-Philippines border but none of them feared for their safety as there was a military post on the island.

-- BERNAMA

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