Photos of leopards raise need for more forest corridors in Sabah

News source : The Star online / Sabah Wildlife Department, Danau Girang Field Centre and HUTAN




Photos : Endangered species: An image of the clouded leopard and her cub that was captured at a narrow strip of forest in the Lower Kinabatangan.

KOTA KINABALU 31 Jan 2011:

A sequence of 12 photographs showing a clouded leopard and her cub moving about in the lower Kinabatangan region in Sabah has strengthened calls among conservationists for the setting up of more wildlife forest corridors.

The photographs were captured last November by camera traps that were part of the Kinabatangan Carnivore Programme involving the Sabah Wildlife Department, conservation group Danau Girang Field Centre, French non-governmental organisation Hutan (that conducts conservation projects and research on orang utan) and WildCRU (the Wildlife Conservation Research Unit, which is part of the University of Oxford Department of Zoology).

Sabah Wildlife director Laurentius Ambu said pictures of the clouded leopard and its cub were captured in a narrow forest corridor between the Kinabatangan river and an oil palm plantation.

Hutan co-director Dr Marc Ancre­naz said the photographs showed that carnivores were still present in the Kinabatangan floodplain.

“The pictures show that these animals rely on forest corridors for moving around forest patches.

“As already shown for other species such as orang utan, gibbons, proboscis monkeys and elephants, these animals need corridors of forest for surviving in the Kinabatangan area.

“Without these corridors, species population will decline and become extinct.

“It is urgent for everybody to collaborate in order to create more corridors,” Dr Ancrenaz said.

Funding for the programme was started by American zoos in Houston, Columbus, Cincinnatti and Phoenix, as well as private donors from New York.

Malaysia's Wildlife trafficking King - Anson Wong !!!

In Malaysia, the authorities are not only arresting Human Traffickers but also Wildlife traffickers as well!!!

One person in Malaysia is known as the "Lizard King" and also known as "the Wildlife Trafficking King of Malaysia" for he is the undisputed trafficker of wildlife species.

He is Anson Wong, whose full name is Wong Keng Liang, 52 years old.

His exotic collection includes snakes, frogs, lizards and tarantula spiders.

His "wildlife trading business" spans across the globe - from Kuala Lumpur to Thailand to Jakarta to Maxico and to the United States of America.

He may be jet-setting around the world, earning millions of dollars but he is being constantly monitored by the international laws including the FBI and Interpol.

The "Lizard King" from the northern Malaysian state of Penang, was eventually caught in his native country in Malaysia.

On the 2nd of September 2010, Anson Wong or also known as the "Pablo Escobar of the Wildlife trade", pleaded guilty at the Sessions Court in Sepang, Selangor to charges of exporting 95 snakes without a permit.

Pablo Escobar was one of the world's biggest drug traffickers!!!

The Lizard King admitted to exporting 95 boa constrictors — which are an endangered species — without a permit at Kuala Lumpur International Airport at 8.50pm on Aug 26 2010.

It had been reported in The Star newspaper that Wong was linked to a December 15th, 2009 seizure in the United States of America, of various types of animals from an exotic animal outlet.

Two of the trader’s companies were found to have been supplying animals to the outlet.

People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (Peta) claimed that CBS Wildlife and Sungai Rusa Wildlife, both owned by Wong, were supplying various types of animals and wildlife.

On Monday 6th September 2010, Wong was jailed six months and fined a total of RM190,000 for smuggling 95 snakes without a permit by the Sepang Session Court in Malaysia.

Meanwhile, Malaysia's Natural Resources and Envi­ronment Minister Datuk Seri Douglas Uggah Embas said his ministry would appeal and seek a tougher penalty against Wong as he believed the wildlife trafficker got off lightly.

In a related development, The Attorney-General's Chambers of Malaysia has filed an appeal against the sentenced meted out to the so called "Lizard King" for smuggling snakes.

The appeal is for a heavier sentence against Wong, who was only jailed six months and fined a total of RM190,000 by the Sepang Sessions Court for smuggling 95 snakes without a permit.

Wong’s lawyer, M. Sivam, said he had yet to receive instructions from his client to appeal against his sentence.

This is the first time that the "Lizard King" has been sentenced in Malaysia.

Various conservation groups had expressed disappointment with the sentence, saying that Malaysia should show that it was serious in tackling wildlife trafficking, in the same way as tackling Human Trafficking.

Wong pleaded guilty to trafficking wildlife in the United States in 2000 and sentenced to 71 months’ jail.

The chapter Book "Fortress Malay-sia" tells of Wong's dealings with an undercover agent that leads to his arrest in Mexico City in 1998, prior to his conviction in a United States court in 2000.

Wong was subsequently extradited to the US and sentenced in a US federal court in San Francisco to 71 months in prison for trafficking in rare and endangered wildlife.

It was dubbed one of the largest cases of illegal trade ever prosecuted in the US .

Drawing from legal documents, official investigation reports and interviews, the chapter describes how Wong had laundered protected star tortoises by the hundreds though Malaysia and the Middle East .

Frilled dragons, native to New Guinea and Australia , turned up at the Miami International Airport accompanied by Malaysian paperwork.

Wong boasts about working things out with a high-level government official, but now his time may be over.

Source - The Star/WildAsia

Danau Girang Field Centre, Sabah, Borneo, Malaysia, welcomes its third batch

Group picture of Cardiff University students and lecturers at the Danau Girang Field Centre recently.



Cardiff University lecturer, Dr. Ian Vaughan shows student Stephanie Johnson how to ring a bird during a recent study visit to Danau Girang Field Centre.



Cardiff students observing elephants from a boat during the field course.



Cardiff students using a big shot to set up butterfly traps in the canopy at Danau Girang Field Centre.

Kinabatangan, Sabah, Borneo, Malaysia : 26 July 2010: Sabah Wildlife Department’s (SWD) field centre located in the Lower Kinabatangan floodplain welcomed its third batch of Cardiff University’s students since the centre opened its doors in July 2008.

Twenty-one second year biology students embarked in a two-week field course focusing on primate communities, bird ringing, butterfly ecology, amphibian and small mammal diversity, and forest ecology.

“Danau Girang is the first field centre set up by the Sabah Wildlife Department, with support from Cardiff University, and it starts to attract more attention from overseas academic institutions,” said SWD Director Dr Laurentius Ambu.

One of the highlights of the field course was the bird ringing activity led by Dr Ian Vaughan, a lecturer and ornithologist at Cardiff University. Since 2008,167 understorey birds were captured and 131 individuals from 30 different species were ringed.

“The main aim is to reveal the assemblage of bird species that use the forest floor and understorey, and to provide some information about their relative densities and movements within the forest,” said Vaughan.

“During the second week of the field course, the students designed their own project and worked in pairs or trios in the forest, looking at butterfly density, comparing density of small mammals in riparian forest, semi-inundated forest and oil palm plantation, looking at abundance and species richness of lizards and amphibians in riparian and semi-inundated forest, and investigation distribution of primates along the river in relation to the proximity of oil palm plantations,” said Dr Benoit Goossens, director of Danau Girang Field Centre and one of the lecturers involved in the field course.

“A troop of 50-60 elephants which stayed in the vicinity of the field centre for several days were the cherry on the cake for the students”, added Goossens.

“The Cardiff students were so lucky to visit Danau Girang as part of their degree, they loved all the different activities on offer: bird ringing, primate survey, frogging, - even facing their fears on the new canopy viewing platform! They were treated with many incredible wildlife sightings – from tarsiers to elephants – and I thoroughly enjoyed showing off this amazing place to them!,” said Jennifer Shepperson, a Cardiff University student and volunteer at DGFC.


The 21 students went back to Europe with plenty of wonderful souvenirs and their head full of images of the rich biodiversity that Sabah harbors in its forests: “My expectations were massively exceeded... just goes to show how incredible this place really is,”

“Memories that will last a lifetime...amazing place, amazing people,” “The landscape is breathtaking, the experience one-of-a-kind, and the people have been wonderful and extremely friendly,” “From baby elephants to a tarsier I am very lucky to have experienced this wonderful place,” and “A truly inspirational 2 weeks. I have seen so much wildlife and have learnt so many new things and just generally had so much fun!” were the few quotes from the students before they left the Kinabatangan.

“These field courses aim at providing yearly assessment on biodiversity present in the highly degraded forests of the Lower Kinabatangan Wildlife Sanctuary and help the Sabah Wildlife Department to manage it”, concluded Goossens.

World’s Most Endangered Otter “Rediscovered” in Deramakot

The “rediscovered” hairy-nosed otter (Lutra sumatrana) photograph taken by an automated camera trap set up by the Conservation of Carnivores in Sabah (ConCaSa) project. Photo copyright of Mohamed & Wilting, SWD, SFD.



A close up of the “rediscovered” hairy-nosed otter (Lutra sumatrana). Photo copyright of Mohamed & Wilting, SWD, SFD.



A photograph of the otter civet (Cynogale bennettii), note another automated camera trap on the opposite side. Photo copyright of Mohamed & Wilting, SWD, SFD.



A photograph of the banded civet (Hemigalus derbyanus), note another automated camera trap on the opposite side. Photo copyright of Mohamed & Wilting, SWD, SFD.


World’s Most Endangered Otter “Rediscovered” in Deramakot

Photos/text : HUTAN - www.hutan.org.my

Kota Kinabalu, 25th July 2010: The world’s most endangered otter species known as the hairy-nosed otter (Lutra sumatrana) has been “rediscovered” in Deramakot Forest Reserve in Sabah by a collaboration of German and Malaysian researchers.

“This is great news for Sabah and shows once again how unique and fortunate we are in terms of wildlife and nature. In addition, these findings also boost the conservation of this endangered otter internationally as historically this otter was distributed throughout large parts of southeast Asia,” said an elated Sabah Wildlife Department Director, Dr. Laurentius Ambu.

The last confirmed record of the hairy-nosed otter in Sabah is a museum specimen collected over a hundred years ago.

“Even over the whole island of Borneo the last record – a road-kill from Brunei – was 1997, over ten years ago. Therefore it was unknown to scientists if this species can be still found on Borneo,” stated Andreas Wilting, the project leader of the Leibniz Institute for Zoo and Wildlife Research (IZW).

In 2008, IZW initiated the Conservation of Carnivores in Sabah (ConCaSa) project with the collaboration of SWD and Sabah Forestry Department (SFD) to study carnivores such as the Sunda clouded leopard, civets and otters in the State.

The ConCaSa project used automated camera traps that were set up in Deramakot and the surrounding forest reserves during the last two years. As the different otter species look very similar the hairy-nosed otter pictures had first to be verified by a number of experts before they were published recently by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Species Survival Commission journal.

In addition to capturing camera trap pictures of the endangered hairy-nosed otter, the study also confirmed the presence of all five Bornean cat species, 13 other small carnivores such as the Banded civet and the sun bear.

“These results mean that out of 25 known carnivore species in Borneo, our project, together with a Japanese researcher Hiromitsu Samejima, confirmed 20 in Deramakot. This makes Deramakot outstanding for being extremely rich in its diversity of carnivores,” explained Wilting.

Besides pictures, ConCaSa also obtained the first videos footages ever taken for some species such the otter civet (Cynogale bennettii).

Since 1997, Deramakot Forest Reserve has been managed by the SFD as a sustainable logged forest with the coveted Forest Stewardship Council certification.

“These findings show that long-term sustainable forest management is of great importance for the protection of some of this country’s most threatened species and of the unique biodiversity of the forests of Borneo,” shared Datuk Sam Mannan the Director of the SFD.

One of the next steps in the conservation of Bornean carnivores is planned to be the 1st Borneo Carnivore Symposium [http://www.fwrc.msstate.edu/borneocarnivoresymposium/ ] in Kota Kinabalu, in June 2011.

This symposium organized by the SWD, three IUCN/SSC Specialist Groups and the IZW will be a landmark international meeting bring together scientists, Government agencies and non-governmental organisations (NGO) working on the protection of the Bornean carnivores to ensure their survival.


* Source: Andreas Wilting, Hiromitsu Samejima and Azlan Mohamed. 2010. Diversity of Bornean viverrids and other small carnivores in Deramakot Forest Reserve, Sabah, Malaysia. Small Carnivore Conservation. 42. 10-13.

Two videos; Otter Civet, Sunda Stink-badger (http://www.smallcarnivoreconservation.org/scc/Volume42)