Borneo pygmy elephants must be protected at all costs

The Consumers’ Association of Penang (CAP) is shocked and condemns the decapitation of the three pygmy elephants, murdered within three months of one another.

It is a difficult time for Sabah because elephant deaths are on the rise, particularly since 2013 when fourteen endangered pygmy elephants were discovered dead under suspicious circumstances in the Gunung Rara Forest Reserve in Sabah.

Then, in January 2017, two elephants were discovered a month apart, one with its face severed to have access to the tusks and the other suspected to have died in November. In May 2018, six more pygmy elephants were discovered dead in oil palm fields on Sabah’s east coast, thought to have been poisoned.

In 2019, twenty-four pygmy elephants were killed, with one elephant having 70 bullets embedded in its body, and the situation has deteriorated in recent years until today. There were 32 deaths in 2024 alone, and as of today, three deaths have been reported.

The deaths of these gentle, playful babyish-faced pygmy elephants with their large ears and long tails were believed to be caused by poisoning, suspected murder, shooting, snaring, poaching for ivory due to market demands, and deliberate retaliatory killings after the elephants entered fields and ate or trampled crops.

Without doubt, deforestation is the greatest hazard and primary driver of human elephant conflicts, as it allows for the expansion of new monoculture plantations, resulting in habitat loss due to forest fragmentation.  When elephants cannot find food in their normal habitats, which are generally pockets of intact forest surrounded by monocrop plantations, they will wander into palm oil or fruit plantations in their quest for sustenance.

What are their chances of survival in the future, given the threats of habitat loss and fragmentation, the expansion of human settlements and agricultural land, logging, infrastructure development, the ongoing death toll, and diminished genetic diversity due to their small population size?

According to the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), whose “Red List” of animal species assesses their risk of extinction, an evaluation by wildlife specialists published on 27 June 2024 revealed that elephants on Borneo Island have become endangered.  It discovered approximately 1,000 Bornean elephants remaining in the wild, compared to the 1,500 previously estimated by government officials and experts.

“It’s a small population, and it could easily disappear if we just let development happen without any conservation actions,” Mr. Craig Hilton-Taylor, head of the IUCN Red List Unit, said of Bornean elephants. As such the Bornean elephant was classified under the updated International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List of Threatened Species on June 26, 2024.

As the pygmy elephant has been designated as an endangered species by the IUCN Red List, this calls for serious action to protect and conserve Sabah’s dwindling elephant population.

Unless there is effective monitoring and enforcement of the laws, tough wildlife regulations and harsh consequences, including hefty fines and imprisonment, could not dissuade the perpetrators of this horrible act from continuing to kill.  Except for the arrest of six individuals and their subsequent sentencing on July 14, 2021, the deaths of elephants in the past and present remain unsolved.

Above all, as long as there is no effective enforcement on the ground, the authority’s harsh warnings and incentives will be ineffective. Since the Kalabakan route has essentially become a hunting highway for hunters, is there any night-time highway patrolling along the route, as well as enforcement in the jungle?

Furthermore, the development of the Pan Borneo Highway, which will connect Sabah and Sarawak, is threatening the Tawai Forest Reverse in Telupid, which is home to enormous elephant herds. In addition, road-building across crucial elephant habitats will promote ivory hunting and poaching.

Professor Benoit Goossens, the director of the Danau Girang Field Centre and member of Coalition 3H, stated that road construction in elephant territories had historically led to an increase in poaching.  He said that the project could push the already vulnerable Telupid elephant population toward extinction.

CAP, with other conservationists, urges the government and relevant authorities re-evaluate the proposed road alignment and instead develop alternate routes that avoid disrupting key elephant habitats.

Finally, strengthening law enforcement is crucial.  This necessitates effective patrolling by law enforcement personnel such as park rangers and the deployment of deep forest patrol teams utilising technology like drones and camera traps. The endangered Borneo pygmy elephants must be protected at all cost to prevent its extinction.

Mohideen Abdul Kader
President
Consumers’ Association of Penang

Letter to the Editor, 28 April 2025