Malaysian wildlife authorities said
they have captured a female Borneo Sumatran rhino who will be paired
with a new mate in a breeding program meant to save their species from
extinction.
The plan is the cornerstone of efforts to preserve the bristly,
snub-nosed animal, whose numbers have fallen to fewer than 40 in the
jungles of Borneo island.
Officials have spent more than three years seeking a suitable
mate for a middle-aged male rhino named "Tam," who was rescued in
Malaysia's eastern Sabah state in 2008 while wandering in an oil palm
plantation with an infected leg likely caused by a poacher trap.
The first rhino previously found for Tam was too old to reproduce.
The Sabah Wildlife Department said in a statement late Saturday
that rangers this past week captured a young female rhino nicknamed
"Puntung" whom they had been monitoring for years.
"This is a fantastic gift for our uphill battle in ensuring the
survival of this truly unique species," said the department's director,
Laurentius Ambu. "This is now the very last chance to save this
species, one of the most ancient forms of mammal."
No other rhino had been observed near Puntung in years,
underscoring that there were so few left in the wild that they had few
opportunities to meet and reproduce, said Junaidi Payne, executive
director of the Borneo Rhino Alliance, a nongovernment group that works
with Sabah's government on rhino protection.
The statement did not disclose Puntung's exact age. Tam is known to be more than 20 years old.
The captive breeding program is being conducted in a forest reserve in Sabah.
Borneo Sumatran rhinos are a subspecies of the Sumatran rhino,
which are the world's smallest rhino species, standing little more than 4
feet (120 centimeters) at the shoulder.
The Borneo subspecies is found only in Malaysia's corner of
Borneo island. Their numbers have dwindled from about 200 a half-century
ago as logging, plantations and other development encroached
increasingly on their habitat, while poachers also hunt the animals for
their horns and other body parts used in traditional medicines.
A similar breeding program for the Sumatran rhino in
neighboring Indonesia suffered a setback last year when a pregnant rhino
named Ratu miscarried.
