Kinabatangan elephants threatened by bridge and road development

KINABATANGAN: A female Borneo elephant was fitted with a satellite collar on Aug 3 at Danau Girang Field Centre (DGFC), Lot 6 of Lower Kinabatangan Wildlife Sanctuary, as part of a collaborative project between the Sabah Wildlife Department (SWD) and DGFC.
DGFC director Dr Benoit Goossens said the collaring operation was led by Malaysian PhD student Nurzhafarina Othman (Cardiff University, attached to DGFC) and wildlife veterinarian Dr Pakee Nagalingam from the Wildlife Rescue Unit.
DGFC and SWD had collared 14 elephants in Kinabatangan since 2008, providing crucial information of their movement along the river, into different forest fragments, oil palm plantations, and in the vicinity of human settlements in Sukau, Bilit, Abai and Batu Putih.
Goossens said the data accumulated over the years from the 14 elephants shows that Sukau is a hotspot for the movement of elephants.
"We can anticipate major conflicts in the area if the construction of a road and bridge bisecting the wildlife sanctuary goes ahead.
"The road and bridge will undermine efforts of several organisations, not excluding the Sabah government, in maintaining the natural habitat connectivity and healthy wildlife population, especially large endangered mammals such as elephants, orang-utans, sun bears, proboscis monkeys and clouded leopards," he said in a statement, today.
The Sabah government declared Lower Kinabatangan as Sabah's "Gift to Earth" in 1999 and gazetted it as a Wildlife Sanctuary in 2005 to restore the natural habitat along Kinabatangan river to curb illegal wildlife hunting, encroachment, and to keep wild animals safe and accessible to a large tourism industry.
Goossens said several millions of ringgit had been invested to rehabilitate, reconnect and restore forest fragments along the river, and Kinabatangan had attracted hundred of thousands of tourists and generated millions of ringgit for the government.
"It seems unwise to destroy years of hard work to make this place a real corridor of life, by building a bridge and sealing a road that will split the sanctuary in three as it is already split into two by the Batu Putih bridge.
"Looking at eight years of data collected from 14 elephants along the Kinabatangan, I can already predict massive conflict in Sukau where elephants will be killed, people will be killed, and the government will lose millions of ringgit mitigating these conflicts."
The charity organisation Elephant Family, the Houston Zoo and the Columbus Zoo have supported the collaring operation in the Kinabatangan for eight years. — Bernama