ENDANGERED SUMATRAN RHINOS: THREATS, GOOD AND BAD NEWS

ENDANGERED SUMATRAN RHINO

Sumatran rhino range

Sumatran rhinos are the most endangered rhino and one of the world's rarest animals. According to Save the Rhino, as of 2022, there were only 35 to 50 Sumatran rhinoceroses in the wild and a few in zoos and sanctuaries. Their numbers have declined quickly. In the late 2000s it was estimated there were 200 Sumatran rhinoceroses.

A survey in 2008 estimated that around 250 Sumatran rhinos survived, but that estimate now appears optimistic and was slashed by 60 percent in 2013. The species numbers have fallen by up to 90 percent since the mid-1980s "The Sumatran rhino is on the very brink of extinction. The number of remaining individuals is unknown, and as they become rarer, the more difficult is it to count them," John Payne a conservation scientist with the Borneo Rhino Alliance (BORA) in Sabah, Malaysia told mongabay.com. Conservationists fear that given current trends, the Sumatran rhino doesn't have another 30 years without urgent action.

There are believed to have be between 200 and 300 Sumatran rhinoceros in the early 2000s down from maybe 500 in the 1980s. They live in Sumatra and a small area of Indonesian Borneo. Until fairly recently they were found in Malaysian Borneo and the Malay peninsula. Paul Watson wrote in the Los Angeles Times, “Armed anti-poaching teams guard the animals in the rain forest, but patrols are expensive and difficult in rough terrain. It costs $2,000 a year to protect a single Sumatran rhino in the forest, said Nico van Strien, Southeast Asia field program coordinator for the International Rhino Foundation. [Source: Paul Watson, Los Angeles Times, April 26, 2007]

The last Sumatran rhinoceros in Malaysia died in November 2019. Reuters reported; The 25-year-old female rhino, named Iman, who has been cared for in a wildlife reserve since her capture in 2014, died of cancer in the state of Sabah on the island of Borneo. The Sumatran rhino was declared extinct in the wild in Malaysia in 2015. Malaysia's last male Sumatran rhino died in May 2018. [Source: Reuters, November 24, 2019]

Threats to Sumatran Rhinos

Threats to Sumatran rhinoceroses have included overhunting, poaching for horns and loss of habitat to plantation agriculture, particulalry for palm oil and coffee. These animals are very sensitive to all forms of disturbances and is driven out by the slightest signs of intrusion. For decades, Sumatran rhinos were decimated by widespread deforestation and poaching for their horns. Today, the species is further imperiled by hanging-on in tiny, disconnected populations in shrinking forest fragments. Some of the rhinos now protected in the sanctuaries lived alone in tiny forests unable to reach others of their kind. Past efforts to protect the Sumatran Rhinoceros — including a disastrous captive breeding program — largely failed.

Many have by killed for their horns by poachers. Their habitat has shrunk dramatically in just the past 20 years. In Aceh Province of Sumatra they have been caught in the middle of a guerilla war. Many of those that have been captured or studied have evidence of encounters with poachers such as snare wounds or scars. One captured animal was found with a bullet in its lung that was calculated to have been there for about 15 years before its capture.

In November 2005, AP reported: “The last five endangered Sumatran rhinos living in a southern Malaysian forest reserve park are believed to have been killed by poachers, a conservationist said. Vincent Chow, an adviser to the Malaysian Nature Society, said indigenous people who live on the fringes of the Endau Rompin National Park in Johor state and regularly roam the area have failed to find any sign of the animals. Chow blamed poachers who hunt the rhino for its horn and other body parts. "The national park is very porous and just too big to patrol, it's in excess of 48 000 hectares of rugged terrain," he said. "Poachers have been known to go in by helicopters to escape detection." Chow urged Malaysian wildlife authorities and park officials to be more aggressive in protecting threatened species "before there is nothing left to protect." [Source: Pauline Jasudason, AP, November 29 2005]

While habitat loss and poaching have historically been the biggest threats to the species, today the largest challenge for wild Sumatran rhinos may be in finding a mate since population densities are so low. Long-decimated by deforestation and poaching, populations of Sumatran rhinos today have become so small and fragmented that it's difficult for them to breed successfully. In some cases, single rhinos have been found surviving alone in a small forest fragment.

Illegal Coffee Growers Threaten Sumatran Rhinos

historical range of the Sumatran rhino range (areas in red are where some were thought to remain in 2007

The Sumatran rhino is also threatened by Southeast Asia’s booming coffee exports, Nick Meo wrote in the Times: “Conservationists estimate that about 20 percent of the Bukit Barisan Selatan National Park in Sumatra has been hacked down for illicit plantations. If the destruction continues unchecked in the 340,000-hectare (840,000-acre) park, some of Asia’s last surviving tigers and the critically endangered hairy rhino, as well as elephants, could vanish within a decade because of the world’s craving for caffeine. [Source: Nick Meo, Times of London, January 17, 2007]

Gone in an Instant, a report published today by WWF, blames international coffee companies for buying illicit coffee — often unknowingly — from middlemen who abuse a lack of regulations to mix beans from the 20,000 tonnes grown illegally inside the park with legitimate crops from elsewhere in Lampung province. The low-grade robusta beans grown in the area are used to make instant and packet coffee and energy drinks by some of the biggest names in the business, including Kraft Foods, Nestlé and ED&F Man. Nestlé was one of the companies praised by researchers for trying to find ways of keeping illegal beans out of their coffee products. Others have pledged to take action to deal with the problem after researchers contacted them. Some who were approached, including London-based ED&F Man, denied purchasing any illicit beans, WWF said.

Researchers used satellite imaging, interviews with coffee farmers and traders and monitoring of trade routes to track the progress of illicit coffee from cleared jungle to the breakfast table in Britain, Germany or America. Nazir Foead, the WWF director of policy, said: “WWF doesn’t want to shut down the coffee industry in Lampung province but we’re asking multinational coffee companies to implement rigorous controls to ensure that they are no longer buying illegally grown coffee.”

Indonesia is now the fourth-biggest coffee producer in the world after Brazil, Colombia and Vietnam, and half of its production is in Lampung province. The coffee rush has brought settlers from crowded Java or elsewhere in Sumatra, and about 15,000 families taken over plots of land where they grow ginger, cinnamon, rubber and coffee. WWF estimates that more than 40,000 hectares have been cut down for coffee plantations inside the protected area. Government officials and overstretched park staff have done little to stop them, and most of the farmers make little more than a subsistence living, although selling coffee has given many of them earnings for the first time in their lives.

One coffee farmer, Suratno, moved from Java in 1984 with his family and admits to growing one and a half hectares of coffee inside the forest. He said: “I don’t feel guilty about growing in the wilderness. There is still plenty of forest in there. But I wouldn’t want to see it all destroyed. Then there could be floods and erosion.” Jonathan Atwood from Kraft, makers of Maxwell House and Kenco, said: “There is a very complex supply chain and traceability is very difficult. We are trying to formulate an action plan with WWF, farmers and the Indonesian Government.”

First Evidence of the Sumatran Rhino in Kalimantan in 20 years

In April 2013, WWF-Indonesia announced it had found evidence of at least one Sumatran rhino persisting in the Indonesian state of Kalimantan, located on the island of Borneo. It was is the first time scientists have confirmed the presence of the species in Kalimantan in over two decades. "This is a very important finding to the world, and especially to Indonesia's conservation work, as this serves as a new record on the presence of Sumatran rhinos in East Kalimantan and especially in West Kutai," Bambang Noviyanto, the director for biodiversity conservation at the Forestry Ministry, said. [Source: Jeremy Hance, mongabay.com, April 2, 2013]

Jeremy Hance of mongabay.com wrote: Although WWF-Indonesia teams have not seen a rhino in Kalimantan yet, they have recently discovered footprints, mud wallows, tree markings, and signs of rhino-feeding. There is no information yet on whether this is just one rhino or a group of survivors. "The fact that this discovery comes more than a decade after the last evidence of the species in Kalimantan, despite the opening up of previously remote areas during that period, suggests that this might be just one or a small number of individuals," explains Payne. "If so, they might not have been breeding. There may be inbreeding, or a skewed sex ratio, or simply old or otherwise infertile rhinos."

In March, 2016, a Sumatran rhino were sighted — and caught — in Kalimantan for first time in 40 years. The Guardian reported: Experts said the capture of a female rhino was “outstanding” and “unprecedented”, and marked the first live sighting of one in the area rather than on camera trap or by evidence such as footprints and dung. The female Sumatran rhino, which is estimated to be between four and five years old, was safely captured in a pit trap in Kutai Barat in East Kalimantan. She was re-homed in a sanctuary around 160 kilometers (100 miles) from where she was captured. Simon Stuart, a rhino expert at the International Union for the Conservation of Nature, said that because of previous experiences where poachers had arrived weeks after specific locations for Sumatran rhino sightings had been declared, it was important that the location of its new home was kept “really, really vague.” Unfortunately, the female rhino — named Najaq — died just a month after she was caught. She a severe infection from wounds believed to have been inflicted by poaching traps. [Sources: Adam Vaughan, The Guardian, 22 March 2016; Associated Press, April 6, 2016]

Genetic Data on Sumatran Rhinoceroses is Good

the potential of new technologies and the role of integrating the management of wild and captive individuals."

Organizers and participants in the event included the Borneo Rhino Alliance (BORA, Malaysia), Land Empowerment Animals People (LEAP, Malaysia), Fauna and Flora International (FFI Indonesia), Rhino Foundation of Indonesia (YABI), Indonesian Zoo and Aquarium Association (PKBSI), International Rhino Foundation (IRF), Leuser International Foundation (LIF, Indonesia), Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS Indonesia), Wildlife Reserves Singapore, Taman Safari Indonesia (TSI), WWF and SOS Rhino US. Sime Darby Foundation, WWF, IUCN, IRF and TSI are providing funds and support for the event.

At the Singapore summit, Indonesian and Malaysian authorities pledged to work together more closely on species survival efforts. Conservationists say special rhino protection patrols have thwarted poachers. "There's no human-rhino conflict," Roth said. "Are we going to put enough value in wildlife to share the earth with this ancient, peaceful, noninvasive species? If we let the Sumatran rhino die, what are we going to save?"

While the Sumatran rhino isn't a particularly popular or even recognizable animal to the public at large, Roth said, the species contributes to the global need for healthy forests with its role in the ecosystem clearing small saplings and brush, and helping spread seeds and make trails smaller animals use. Also, the rhinos don't threaten humans nor damage their crops.

Experts Say Rhino Populations in Sumatra and Borneo Should Be Combined

In 2021, Reuters reported: A genome study involving the last remaining populations of the Sumatran rhinoceros is providing what scientists called good news about the prospects of saving this critically endangered species from extinction. “The researchers said that their study found that the two existing wild populations of this rhino on the islands of Borneo and Sumatra boast unexpectedly good genetic health and surprisingly low levels of inbreeding. [Source: Will Dunham, Reuters, April 27, 2021]

“"With such small population sizes, we were expecting much higher inbreeding in extant populations of Sumatran rhinoceros. So these findings were good news to us," said Nicolas Dussex, a postdoctoral researcher at the Centre for Palaeogenetics in Sweden who helped lead the study published in the journal Nature Communications. "Moreover, while the fate of the Malaysian population serves as a stark warning to what might happen to the two remaining populations on Sumatra and Borneo, our findings suggest that it may not be too late to find ways to preserve the genetic diversity of the species," Dussex said.

“The researchers sequenced the genomes of seven rhinos from Borneo, eight from Sumatra and six from the Malay Peninsula population that has been considered extinct since 2015. "When it comes to long-term survival of a species, genetic diversity is one of the key factors, as this enables adaptation to future environmental changes and diseases," said Centre for Palaeogenetics doctoral student and study lead author Johanna von Seth. "So, the fact that a lot of diversity remains is very promising if we can manage to maintain it, of course assuming we can also reduce the impact of non-genetic factors."

“The researchers said steps such as translocating rhinos for mating — a costly and logistically challenging proposition — or using artificial insemination could enable a beneficial exchange of genes between the Borneo and Sumatra populations. This species has shown low reproductive success in captivity and faces a high risk of inbreeding — mating with close relatives — in the wild because of its small numbers.

“Inbreeding creates a heightened risk of genetic flaws and reduced genetic diversity. Scientists had feared that reports of tumors and low fecundity among these rhinos were evidence of a dangerously inbred population.

Efforts to Save the Sumatran Rhino

In 2013, the Indonesian and Malaysian governments signed a major agreement to cooperate helping Sumatran rhinos at summit by the International Union for Conservation of Nature's Species Survival Commission (IUCN SSC). "Serious steps must be taken to roll back the tide of extinction of the Sumatran rhino," Widodo Ramono, Executive Director of Yayasan Badak Indonesia (YABI), said in a statement. "This could be our last opportunity to save this species and, by working together as a collaborative unit, internationally and regionally, with an agreed vision and goals, a glimmer of hope has been clearly demonstrated." [Source: Jeremy Hance, mongabay.com, April 8, 2013]

Jeremy Hance of mongabay.com wrote: Not all Sumatran rhino news has been bleak lately: last year the first Sumatran rhino calf was born at a semi-wild sanctuary in Indonesia. It was only the fourth time in a century that captive Sumatran rhinos have given birth. A similar sanctuary, with large pens in natural forest, has also been establish in the state of Sabah, Malaysian Borneo. These two sanctuaries are increasingly being seen as "insurance policies" against total extinction. Currently the two sanctuaries house eight rhinos between them.

Possible plans include moving individual rhinos between Sumatra and Borneo, sharing reproductive cells, and using the most advanced reproductive technology available. "We need to act together urgently, hand in hand, replicating some of the inspirational successes of other conservation efforts and aim to stop any failures that might impede progress," Ramono said.

Summit Held to Protect the Sumatran Rhino

Over 130 government officials, scientists, and NGO representatives met for a week long summit in April 2013 at the Singapore Zoo on ways to proceed with conserving the Sumatran rhino. The summit was notable for gathering experts from both Indonesia and Malaysia to compare notes on the Critically Endangered species and for the production of a two year emergency action plan. According to a press release, the summit also looked at past success stories of bringing nearly extinct animals back from the brink, including the white rhinoceros, California condor, and black-footed ferret.

Mark Stanley Price, Chairman of the IUCN SSC Species Conservation Planning Sub-Committee called the summit "transformational" for pledges between the governments to work together to save the animal. As well, he noted that "huge progress has been made in specifying the resources needed to improve rhino surveys, security and monitoring. We have also explored

In May 2013, mongabay.com reported:“A new study argues for treating endangered Sumatran rhino populations in Borneo and Sumatra as "a single conservation unit", lending academic support to a controversial proposal to move wild rhinos from Malaysia to Indonesia.The paper, authored by an international team of rhino experts and published in the journal Oryx, says that genetic differences between the island populations are minimal. Given the dire straights of the species — the wild population is estimated at less than 100 individuals — the researchers argue that ensuring the Sumatran rhino's survival takes precedence over preserving what little genetic diversity remains between populations. [Source: mongabay.com, May 15, 2013]

Image Sources: Wikimedia Commons

Text Sources: Animal Diversity Web animaldiversity.org ; National Geographic, Live Science, Natural History magazine, David Attenborough books, New York Times, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, Smithsonian magazine, Discover magazine, The New Yorker, Time, Reuters, Associated Press, AFP, Lonely Planet Guides, Wikipedia, The Guardian, Top Secret Animal Attack Files website and various books and other publications.

Last updated December 2024