With Rocco, one of the trained elephants at Sepilok.
Iman, the lone surviving captive Sumatran rhino has just got her ova extracted by reproductive experts from Germany.
I saw a statement from my ‘Sabahan Vet’ group that the FPL or Fakulti Pertanian Lestari in Sandakan has just received a rhino oocyst to facilitate the first ICSI or intracytoplasmic sperm injection procedure at its Reproductive Innovation Centre for Wildlife and Livestock (RICWL).
This is the only hope left to keep the Sumatran rhino of Sabah alive. If this fails and Iman dies, the extinction of the Sumatran rhino in Sabah is final.
I was involved with the in situ conservation program of the Sumatran rhino which started in 1985. I did a post-mortem on the first rhino which died in the pit trap at Sukau.
I was involved with the first capture, which was Tenegang and later, Malbumi. My six-year stint at Sepilok saw the first successful natural breeding of the Sumatran rhinos.
Although, Sepilok did not see a baby rhino, our experience had opened the window for successful natural breeding at Cincinnati Zoo, USA and the birth of a captive rhino named Andalas.
To date, more baby rhinos have been produced in the said Zoo and at Way Kambas Rhino Sanctuary in Sumatra.
Sabah’s landscape started to change from the 70s when logging was good business followed by oil palm plantations.
The land utilization committee may have overlooked the importance of wildlife at that time. This is obvious, as we are now talking about and trying to create wildlife corridors to facilitate the movements of wild animals from one patch of forest to another. Even riparian reserve, which is supposed to be a natural corridor, is not spared.
While building highways and high tension power lines across forests is inevitable, these, too, contribute to some of the constraints in wildlife management and conservation.
Good road network is also detrimental to wildlife. This can however, be mitigated with strong effective and efficient enforcement.
I was involved in the translocation of more than 20 wild elephants and not less than 300 Orangutans. I spent lots of time training the rangers on capture and management of captive animals.
I have also worked with researchers on formulating the best drug combination to be used for the translocation exercise.
I have introduced microchips for all the translocated animals (including proboscis monkeys, clouded leopard, porcupines and even pythons) and tattooing for Orangutans and elephants.
The tattoo was done on the whiter inner thigh of the Orangutan and the inner part of the elephant’s ear so that we can identify them from a safe distance using powerful binoculars.
Whilst at Sepilok, I was involved in so many research activities, from studying malaria in primates to viruses with emphasize on zoonotic diseases such as Zika and Dengue.
We went on to look at the DNA of Orangutans and elephants, and, from that, we concluded that our Sabah elephants are unique thereby naming them pygmy elephants.
The entire world knows about our rehabilitation and conservation work on Orangutans. There are countless documentary films made on our wildlife and not forgetting the many who, have gained their academic degrees and became experts from our wildlife.
The contribution of wildlife to our wellbeing is understated. Our indigenous people have survived on wild animals, river and forest products and so forth. Along the way, people in the urban areas have also benefited from wildlife meat and forest products.
Today, wildlife ecotourism is not only filling up the nation’s coffer but also provides employment opportunity at every strata of society. Yet, we saw the rampant killing of our iconic pygmy elephants, a wildlife that is so obvious and popular with the tourists.
Once again, I would like to humbly tell the government that the first step in effective wildlife conservation is to place the pygmy elephant as the umbrella species.
Every effort to protect and conserve the pygmy elephant will ultimately afford protection for the lesser species.
This is saving many species with one umbrella. It also means that every NGO that is planning to work on conserving a particular species will best work under the elephant umbrella.
I would like to see that the zoo having more exhibits and a sustainable breeding program to support the wildlife release-back program.