Studying the social structure of Bornean Elephant

BorneoPost On Line

September 14th, 2008

KINABATANGAN: There is much about the Bornean Elephant that is unknown, according to a conservationist in Sabah.

“We do not yet understand their actual family structures and how group dynamics are,” said Nurzhafarina Othman, the conservation biologist at the Danau Girang Field Centre, who heads a new study which is the first on the social structure of the Bornean Elephant.

Danau Girang is a field study centre located within the Kinabatangan. It is a collaborative project between the Sabah Wildlife Department (SWD) and Cardiff University.

While genetic studies have been carried out previously, there has been none about their social structure.

The bulk of the study is being done with actual field work by Nurzhafarina, who is working with the Elephant Conservation Unit (co-founded by French NGO Hutan and Sabah Wildlife Department) as actual observation on individuals is crucial to the study.

DNA information will also be collected on the individuals via the faeces.

This data in turn will assist the Sabah Wildlife Department in managing the Kinabatangan’s elephant population.

“These series of photographs, for example, show us a lot about the caring behaviour of the elephants as the mother and another female, which we assume is related, trying to protect and safely bring the baby over to the other side of the bank,” explained Nurzhafarina.

The pictures were taken by her supervisor for her doctorate degree, conservation geneticist Dr Benoit Goossens.

“Because we are tracking the three elephants we satellite-collared in July, we knew that the elephants were in the area, so I was able to track them from the river,” said Goossens, who is also the director of Danau Girang Field Centre, which is a SWD facility.

The remarkable series of photographs show how a little baby elephant, believed to be a month old, struggled to cross the riverbanks.

As elephants have lost much of their habitat due to conversion of land to primarily agriculture, they need to zig-zag across the broken landscape as they travel to find food.

“And of course this includes the need to cross rivers to get to feeding grounds.

“However, river crossing is quite stressful for elephants who have to contend with strong currents and dangers of crocodiles, especially for their young,” said Nurzhafarina.

“We have seen elephants struggling with crocodiles as they make a grab for the smaller elephants, but so far we have not seen fatalities as the group always work very hard together to protect their young,” added Sulaiman, who heads the Elephant Conservation Unit.

Wildlife experts worldwide often speak about the protective and nurturing nature of elephants, which are quite regularly seen in the wild.

The Sabah population of Bornean Elephant was estimated at about 1,500 in a 2002 study led by SWD.