KUALA LUMPUR: Malaysia’s pygmy elephants, which were only recently identified as a new subspecies, are being fitted with satellite collars to gain vital information about how they live and how to protect them.
The environmental group WWF hopes to discover exactly where in the Borneo jungles the endangered animals live, how many of them there are, and how much smaller they are compared to their cousins, the Asian elephant.
“No one has studied the pygmy elephants before and we know very little about their population size, social structure or use of their habitat,” says Jan Vertefeuille of WWF USA who was part of a collaring expedition begun last month.
The pygmy elephant has an appealing rounded appearance, and is thought to stand about 2.4 metres (8 feet) tall, as much as 60 centimetres (two feet) shorter than elephants found elsewhere in Asia.
Their faces are smaller and squarer, their tails are longer, reaching almost to the ground, and their tusks are straighter.
“They are quite cute to look at... they seem like a younger, chubbier version of the Asian elephant,” says Christy Williams, WWF’s coordinator for elephant conservation programs in Asia.
Another major difference is their good temperament, more docile even than the Asian elephant which is famously cooperative and hardworking compared to the larger, more aggressive African subspecies which is rarely tamed.
This characteristic gave rise to a myth which obscured the pygmy elephant’s origins for many years, until 2003 when the WWF and Columbia University found through DNA testing that it was genetically distinct.
“Borneo’s elephants were long thought to be a feral population of domesticated elephants from elsewhere in Asia, released in Sabah 400 years ago by the Sultan of Sulu,” says Vertefeuille.
“This belief was bolstered by the fact that the elephants are found only in the northeast tip of Borneo and not across the whole island, and because they are more gentle-natured and seemingly tamer than other elephants.”
Their new status “makes them a high conservation priority” but much more needs to be known before wildlife experts can determine the best way to conserve them, she says.
“Much of the forest they live in is being logged or is slated for conversion to oil palm plantations, so such research is urgently needed.”
Currently experts believe there are just 1,500 pygmy elephants and that they are located only in Malaysia’s Sabah state on Borneo island.
Trackers last month began searching the dense Borneo jungles for the beasts, shooting them with tranquiliser darts and fitting them with satellite collars made by a South African company.
The collars will relay the elephants’ location to a website three times a day, and give off VHF signals which will allow field teams to check them twice a month to monitor what they’re eating and how many are grouped together.
“Once we have at least 12 months’ worth of data, we will have a much better understanding of the elephants in Sabah and what habitat is most crucial to their survival,” Vertefeuille says.
So far, three animals have been collared and another expedition will set out this month to track another three.—AFP
