Elephant mystery 'solved'
2008-04-17 13:44
Jakarta - Borneo's mysterious pygmy elephant may be the last survivors of the Javan elephants race thought to have become extinct centuries ago, the environmental group WWF said on Thursday.
Researchers said the origins of the pygmy elephants, found in a range extending from the north-east of the island into the heart of Borneo, have long been shrouded in mystery.
Scientists solved part of the mystery in 2003 after DNA tests ruled out the possibility that the Borneo elephants were from Sumatra or mainland Asia, where the other Asian subspecies are found, the WWF said in its publication.
"It's exciting to consider that the forest-dwelling Borneo elephants may be the last vestiges of a subspecies that went extinct on its native Java Island, in Indonesia, centuries ago," said Shim Phyau Soon, a retired Malaysian forester.
"Elephants were shipped from place to place across Asia many hundreds of years ago, usually as gifts between rulers," said Shim, whose ideas on the origins of the elephants partly inspired the current research.
WWF said the new study found no archaeological evidence of a long-term elephant presence on Borneo, reinforcing the theory that they were brought there centuries ago by the Sultan of Sulu, which is now in the Philippines.
Researchers believed the pygmy elephants, which are much smaller and more docile than their cousins found elsewhere in Asia, were brought to Borneo by royalty long ago, and later abandoned in the jungle.
They also have babyish faces, larger ears, and longer tails that reach almost to the ground, the WWF said, adding that they are also less aggressive than other Asian elephants.
"Just one fertile female and one fertile male elephant, if left undisturbed in enough good habitat, could in theory end up as a population of 2 000 elephants within less than 300 years," said Junaidi Payne of WWF, one of the paper's co-authors. "And that may be what happened in practice here."
There are perhaps just 1 000 of the elephants in the wild, mostly in the Malaysian state of Sabah.
WWF said satellite tracking has shown the animals prefer the same lowland habitat that is being increasingly cleared for timber, rubber and palm oil plantations.
"If they came from Java, this fascinating story demonstrates the value of efforts to save even small populations of certain species, often thought to be doomed," said Dr Christy Williams, co-ordinator of WWF's Asian elephant and rhino programme.
"It gives us the courage to propose such undertakings with the small remaining populations of critically endangered Sumatran rhinos and Javan rhinos, by translocating a few to better habitats to increase their numbers," Williams said.
"It has worked for Africa's southern white rhinos and Indian rhinos, and now we have seen it may have worked for the Javan elephant, too." - Sapa-dpa
- SAPA