Adult seladangs have a raised ridge along their backs and two hanging folds of skin beneath their chins.
TO take the bull by its horns is an old English expression which simply means, ‘Get on with it’. No one, with any sense, would attempt such an act apart from an impaled matador in a bullfight. In Malaysia, there are two species of wild cattle, one found in Peninsular Malaysia and the other in Borneo. In the peninsula, there is the seladang (Bos gaurus) and in Sabah there is the banteng (Bos javinicus) or wild ox.
You may ask yourselves why we should bother about wild cattle? The answer is obvious for they are part of our indigenous wildlife and are today threatened by us. They have been here long before man started to roam the Earth. We have domesticated and interbred some of these wild cattle to produce the kerbau, which happily lives alongside us. Both the seladang and banteng are ungulates as, indeed, are our own cattle.
Seladang
These are the largest and heaviest of the two species of Malaysian wild cattle, with bulls standing two metres high at the shoulders. Far from being aggressive, they are shy and retiring animals unless threatened. Found in Nepal, India, Myanmar, Vietnam and Laos, in Malaysia they may be spotted in two locations at Taman Negara National Park and at the Jenderak Seladang Sanctuary in Pahang in herds of up to 11 animals to include one bull.
Blackish-brown in colour, an adult seladang has a raised ridge along its back and two hanging folds of skin or dewlaps beneath its chin. With slender hooves, more like those of deer than oxen, they have white ‘stockings’ on both their fore and hind legs. Bulls have thicker and wider, but not overlarge horns than cows, which they use to ease their way through undergrowth. Young seladangs are golden brown in colour for the first six months of their lives and gradually develop ‘whitish’ stockings. Their horns start to grow at the yearling stage.
Feeding and rearing
Seladangs especially like to feed in undisturbed areas, eating grasses and shrubs in rainforest clearings and given the opportunity will feed in paddy fields or in banana and pineapple plantations, and even on the young shoots of rubber trees. Whilst they may live near to man and disturb farmers, they are very wary animals with an amazing sense of smell, dashing away into undergrowth upon scenting man or his dogs.
As mentioned earlier there is often a bull amongst the cows. Gestation time is about nine months, and their calves are suckled from either side of their mother’s udders. Some herds are led by a matriarch who stamps her authority on the herd, dictating when and where they graze and rest.
These cattle can bellow loud and clear. It is thanks to the government’s farsighted conservation plans that these animals are still with us in protected areas. The beauty of this beast is well worth patient observation.
It is believed that the population of bantengs in Australia has reached 10,000.
Bornean banteng
Chocolate brown to black in colour, these short haired wild cattle are very distinctive with their white posteriors and white ‘stockings’ on their lower legs. Perhaps the white spots above their eyes single them out from any other species of oxen. Hans Hazebroek, Tengku Zainal Adlin and Waidi Sinun have encapsulated them well in their 2004 book entitled ‘Maliau Basin – Sabah’s Lost World’.
Besides living in the Maliau Basin, they are found in eastern Sabah with an estimated population of 1,000 plus of these animals in the 104km sq area of the Kulamba Wildlife Reserve. They are also found in Kalimantan. Sadly, this particular species is very much on the decline owing to a reduction of their natural habitats. Bantengs are found in Java, but the Bornean banteng is a smaller species than its Javan equivalent and its horns take a steeper upturn.
Habitat and herds
Again, as with seladangs, bantengs feed essentially on grass, fruit, new bamboo shoots, and any other new growth, grazing by both day and night and depending upon open patches in the rainforest. As if they do not obtain enough mineral nutrients from their diet, they are drawn, not unlike the seladang, to saltlicks to gain extra minerals.
Up to 30 cattle to include one adult male are found in one herd. The cows usually give birth to one calf in March or April after a gestation period of nine months. Their lifespan, like seladangs, is up to 20 years but in captivity this has been extended by five years.
Protection
Certainly the Bornean banteng needs urgent protection for it is classified on the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) list as an endangered species. It is hoped that the Maliau Basin Conservation Area will hold the key as to the future of these animals and especially in the Tembadau Valley.
A banteng cow nurses her calf.
All may not be lost
In 1849, over 20 bantengs were transported by the British to Arnhem Land in northern Australia and then set free. Nowadays, it is thought that their population numbers have reached 10,000. This is the largest banteng population in the world.
There, in Arnhem Land, they happily graze with a symbiotic relationship with birds that land on their necks and backs and pick off parasites. Much the same symbiotic relationship between birds and beasts can readily be seen with the odd kerbau grazing on roadside grass verges in our kampungs.
Perhaps this is a mad thought of mine and a wildcard to play! Could not some of the Australian banteng be transported back to Borneo to breed with their long-lost cousins? We cannot deny that evolution exists, and whilst we cry aloud for the preservation, protection and conservation of our indigenous species of animals and birds, we must realise that we are just ‘visitors’ on Earth in our lifetimes.
In our short time in the 21st century, most nations can find the wherewithal to make our mark not only in recording indigenous animal, bird, insect, and fish populations at risk of extinction but to do something positively to ensure that their numbers increase. Perhaps it is our greed for prosperity and so-called ‘development’ that has seen the seladang and banteng populations gradually disappear.
I hope one day, sooner than later, I may be taken into a rainforest glade to see these animals at first hand. I thank all Malaysian researchers on these wild oxen for helping me to compile this week’s column.