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  Yahoo News 25 Apr 07
Rhino on camera was rare sub-species: wildlife group

Yahoo News 24 Apr 07
Rare Sumatran rhino filmed for first time

Yahoo News 24 Apr 07
Rare rhino filmed in Malaysia
By Clarence Fernandez

WWF 24 Apr 07
WWF captures extraordinary video of rare Borneo rhino

A video “camera trap” positioned inside the jungle has captured rare footage of an elusive Borneo rhino, WWF and Malaysia’s Sabah Wildlife Department announced today.

The 2 minute video — showing the animal eating, walking to the camera and sniffing the equipment — is the first-ever footage of observing the behaviour in the wild of one of the world’s rarest rhinos.

Scientists estimate there are only between 25 and 50 rhinos left on the island of Borneo. These last survivors of the Bornean subspecies of Sumatran rhinos are believed to remain only in the interior forests of Sabah, Malaysia — an area known as the “Heart of Borneo.”

The rhinos are so secretive that the first-ever still photo of one was captured last year.

“These are very shy animals that are almost never seen by people,” said Mahedi Andau, director of the Sabah Wildlife Department. “This video gives us an amazing opportunity to spy on the rhino’s behaviour.”

The rhinos in Sabah spend their lives in dense jungle where they are rarely seen, which accounts for the lack of any previous photographs of them in the wild.

The video camera trap that captured the rhino footage was developed by Stephen Hogg, Head of Audio Visual at WWF-Malaysia. After successfully testing the newly developed camera trap on Malayan tigers in Peninsula Malaysia, it was set up in Sabah to capture the Sumatran rhino.

Photos and video footage can determine the condition of rhinos, help identify individual animals and show how they behave in the wild.

“We did a pilot test with two of my video cameras in an area that the field team had determined was used by rhinos. The first time we checked them, after four weeks, there were these fantastic images,” Hogg said. “This is further proof that these video cameras do work and are of value to our conservation work. This footage is awesome and could not have been better.”

On Borneo, there have been no confirmed reports of rhinos apart from those in Sabah for almost 20 years, leading experts to fear that the species may now be extinct on the rest of the island.

Major threats include poaching, illegal encroachment into key rhino habitats, and the fact that the remaining rhinos are so isolated that they may rarely or never meet to breed.

“The photos and video footage will be used to determine the condition of the rhinos in the wild,” said Raymond Alfred, project manager for WWF’s Asian Rhino and Elephant Action Strategy (AREAS).

“But we have to realize that these rhinos could face extinction in the next ten years if their habitat continues to be disturbed and enforcement is not in place.”

Recently, the ministers of the three Bornean governments – Brunei Darussalam, Indonesia and Malaysia – signed an historic Declaration to conserve and sustainably manage the Heart of Borneo. This has put the area on the global stage of conservation priorities.

END NOTES:

• The rhinos found on Borneo are regarded as a subspecies of the Sumatran rhinos, which means they have different physical characteristics to rhinos found in Sumatra (Indonesia) and Peninsular Malaysia. The Sumatran rhino is one of the world's most critically endangered species, with small numbers found only in Sumatra (Indonesia), Sabah (on the northern end of Borneo) and Peninsular Malaysia.

• Conservationists hope that the population is viable and will be able to reproduce if protected from poaching. However, a high proportion of females have reproductive problems. Many of the remaining rhinos are old and possibly beyond reproductive age. The death rate may be exceeding birth rate.

• Sabah and the forests of the "Heart of Borneo" still hold huge tracts of continuous natural forests, which are some of the most biologically diverse habitats on Earth, with high numbers of unique animal and plant species. It is one of only two places in the world – Indonesia's Sumatra island is the other – where orang-utans, elephants and rhinos still co-exist and where forests are currently large enough to maintain viable populations.

• WWF, Sabah Wildlife Department, Sabah Forestry Department and SOS Rhino are currently conducting on-the-ground monitoring to protect key rhino habitat in Sabah. However, based on the field survey and patrol in several key habitats in Sabah, a single field enforcement activity will not be effective without an integrated awareness programme and the willingness of the public and other agencies to cooperate to protect rhino habitats.

• Sabah Forestry Department is leading the acquisition of a 200-hectare forest corridor to be secured as rhino habitat, and is strengthening security within this portion of the Heart of Borneo with the support of Sabah Wildlife Department, Sabah Foundation and WWF-Malaysia.

Yahoo News 24 Apr 07
Rare Sumatran rhino filmed for first time

One of the world's most endangered animals, the Sumatran rhinoceros, has been filmed in the wild for the first time in a coup that could help save it from extinction, wildlife campaigners said Tuesday.

The night time footage from Borneo island in Malaysia showed a Sumatran rhino eating, peering through jungle foliage, before it walked up to the camera and sniffed the equipment.

Malaysian officials and the WWF hailed the two-minute clip from a video camera mounted in a forest as a rare look into the rhino's life. "These are very shy animals that are almost never seen by people and so this video gives us an amazing opportunity to spy on the rhino's behaviour," said Mahedi Andau, director the wildlife department in eastern Sabah state on Borneo island.

The Sumatran rhinoceros is one of the world's most critically-endangered species, with only small numbers left on Indonesia's Sumatra island, Sabah and peninsular Malaysia, according to the WWF. The rhino shot in the two-minute footage is a Bornean subspecies and scientists estimate there are only between 25 and 50 left on the island, mostly believed to be found in Sabah's dense interior forests, it said.

Raymond Alfred, project manager for WWF-Malaysia's Asian Rhino and Elephant Action Strategy, said the footage and other photo stills would be used to determine the animals' condition.

"This is one of the greatest efforts for our project because now we can see what kind of habitat or what kind of forest condition the rhino lives in," Alfred told AFP.

The rhino was found in a commercial forest where human activity such as logging is commonplace but the footage will be used to convince the Sabah government to turn the area into a rhino conservation zone.

"These rhinos could face extinction in the next 10 years if their habitat continues to be disturbed and enforcement is not in place," Alfred said.

The shy creature's population has suffered from poaching and illegal encroachment into its habitat.

The rhinos are so isolated that they rarely meet to breed. The Sabah forestry department said in the statement it was trying to acquire a 200-hectare (500-acre) forest corridor to be secured as a rhino habitat.

It also said it was enhancing security in its part of the "Heart of Borneo" where the rhino was found, a 240,000 square kilometre (96,000-square mile) area of rainforest across the Malaysian, Brunei and Indonesian parts of the island.

WWF-Malaysia said footage of the rhino could be viewed on the Internet at: www.panda.org/borneorhino.

Yahoo News 24 Apr 07
Rare rhino filmed in Malaysia
By Clarence Fernandez

One of the world's rarest rhinos has been caught on film for the first time on Borneo island, wildlife officials said on Tuesday as they showed footage of the animal eating, walking about and sniffing the camera.

Malaysian officials of global conservation organization WWF said the two-minute video, recorded in February by a camera hidden in the jungle, was the first to capture the behavior of the elusive two-horned Borneo rhino in the wild.

There are only between 25 and 50 of the rhinos left alive in the dense jungles deep in the heart of the Malaysian state of Sabah on Borneo, and the animals are so secretive that the first still picture of one was only taken last year, the WWF said.

"At the moment they're so rare, it's difficult even to get the video," said Mike Chong, team leader of the WWF's rhino conservation project in peninsular Malaysia. "Once we have more videos, we can study them in greater detail."

The video clip shows the huge animal foraging in undergrowth, breathing heavily as it approaches the camera close enough for viewers to glimpse its eyes and long front horn, along with the individual hairs on its chin and the wrinkles on its neck.

Except for the sightings in Sabah, there have been no confirmed reports of rhinos on Borneo for almost 20 years, leading experts to fear the species may now be extinct on the rest of the island, the WWF said.

Major threats the animals face include poaching, illegal encroachment into key home areas, and the fact that they are so cut off from each other that they may rarely meet to breed.

Rhino horns, made of hair-like keratin fibres, have reputed aphrodisiac qualities and are a prized ingredient of traditional Asian medicines.

Many females also have difficulty reproducing, and with many ageing animals in the population, the numbers of those dying could be exceeding new births, the WWF said.

Rhinos suffer from development because the clearing of forests destroys natural salt-licks that are crucial to their diet, said Raymond Alfred, project manager for the WWF's rhino and elephant programs in Borneo.

"Till now we can still see the rhino, but if we cannot develop any kind of protection method, I think the rhinos will survive less than ten years," he said. "The rhino is very sensitive to the presence of human beings."

The footage and future videos will be used to study the condition of the rhinos in the wild, Alfred told Reuters.

"One piece of good news is that we found a small footprint of a rhino followed by the parent, so that is a sign that the rhino is still breeding."

Scientists consider the Borneo rhinos, known to biologists by the name Dicerorhinus sumatrensis harrissoni, to be a subspecies of the Sumatran rhino, with different characteristics from those found in Indonesia and the Malaysian peninsula, the WWF says.

The Sumatran rhino is one of the world's most critically endangered species, with small numbers found only in Indonesia, Sabah at the northern end of Borneo, and in peninsular Malaysia.

Though it is the smallest and hairiest of all the rhinos, it can weigh from 600 to 800 kg (1,300 to 1,800 lb). Its numbers are believed to have halved in the decade to 1995, with fewer than 300 left today, the WWF says.

Link to rhino footage

Yahoo News 25 Apr 07
Rhino on camera was rare sub-species: wildlife group

The wildlife group WWF-Malaysia said Wednesday that its rare footage of a critically-endangered Sumatran rhinoceros was of the Bornean sub-species. The footage, taken in a forest in Malaysia's Sabah state on Borneo island, shows a rhino eating, peering through jungle foliage and sniffing the automatic video camera equipment used to shoot it.

WWF-Malaysia had said Tuesday the two-minute clip was the first shot of the Sumatran rhino, but issued a clarification Wednesday to say it was instead unprecedented footage of the Bornean sub-species.

"The recently released rhino footage is the first-ever obtained of behaviour in the wild of the Bornean sub-species of the Sumatran or Asiatic Two-horned Rhinoceros, in Borneo," it said in a statement.

"The Bornean sub-species is the rarest of all rhinos, distinguished from Sumatran rhinos elsewhere by its relatively small size, small teeth and a head that is high and narrow at the back end."

The Sumatran rhinoceros is one of the world's most endangered species with only small numbers left on Indonesia's Sumatra island, Sabah and peninsular Malaysia, according to the WWF. Scientists estimate that there are only between 25 and 50 of the Bornean sub-species left on the island, it has said.
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