Last week TheSnout.in reported the encouraging story of how the Iberian lynx has made a comeback from the brink of extinction. Now, halfway around the world in Southeast Asia, the Bornean elephant, the world’s smallest, has been assessed as “endangered”, with barely 1,000 individuals remaining in the wild as human activities in its habitat rise rapidly, according to the latest update to the International Union for Conservation of Nature’s Red List of Threatened Species.
This is the first time the Asian elephant in Borneo has been assessed as a distinct subspecies on the IUCN Red List. The elephant, which on average is about 3 feet shorter than its other Asian cousins and is known for its gentle, playful nature, has lived on the island of Borneo for hundreds, if not thousands, of years, separated from the mainland elephants and evolving into a distinct population, according to a BBC report. But its population has diminished over the past 75 years.
Initially, the elephant faced loss of habitat due to extensive logging of Borneo’s forests. As the population of humans has grown rapidly in the Malaysian province of Sabah on the island, the elephants are forced to enter human-dominated landscapes more often in search of food, where they sometimes damage crops and face murder in retribution.
Further habitat loss from agriculture, especially for cultivation of oil palms, timber plantations, mining, and major infrastructure projects such as the Pan Borneo Highway threaten the animal’s future. Poaching for ivory, accidental ingestion of agrochemicals, and vehicle collisions are also concerns, the IUCN said in a press release.
These same activities have also endangered the survival of the orangutan, one of the four great ape genera in the world. Borneo and the neighbouring island of Sumatra are the major habitats of the ape. The boom in the palm oil industry in Malaysia and Indonesia, with India being a leading consumer, has led to vast deforestation, loss of wildlife, and human-animal conflict in the region.
“The last two decades have seen extensive efforts both to understand and to conserve Bornean elephants,” said Augustine Tuuga, director of the Sabah Wildlife Department and a member of the IUCN SSC Asian Elephant Specialist Group. “These activities are vital to secure a future for this subspecies and to allow for smooth socio-economic development of the areas where the elephants are roaming.”
There is hope that the elephant can be saved through conservation work, Benoit Goossens, a wildlife biologist at Cardiff University and director of the Danau Girang Field Centre in Sabah, told the BBC. The Red List can help to raise awareness of the plight of an endangered animal and boost support, he said.
“The message of hope is that there are many organizations in Sabah, including the government, that are working very hard to conserve the elephant,” Goossens said. We can only hope the scientist’s optimism is well placed and, following the example of the Iberian lynx, the Bornean elephant will also make a comeback.
Professor Adrian Lister of London’s Natural History Museum told the BBC that the elephant is unique in many ways, from its baby face to its small size. “We hope that by getting the Borneo elephants on to the Red List, that will galvanise the efforts for their conservation to protect their habitat because the authorities will now see that the eyes of the world are on this species,” he said.
Sandy Pawpaw
Sandy Pawpaw is a fierce advocate of unleashing the animal in, and with, you.
