Findings from wildlife researchers have found that the Sumatran Rhinoceros has completely disappeared from Malaysia’s jungles.
In a report published in the international conservation journal Oryx, a group of 11 wildlife experts wrote that apart from two Sumatran rhinos caught in 2011 and 2014, there had been no more sightings of the species in Malaysia, despite extensive searches.
“As of June 2015, no further signs of the species have been found in Sabah, and it is safe to consider the species extinct in the wild in Malaysia,” the report stated, as quoted by The Star Online.
Currently, Malaysia only has three Sumatran rhinos on its soil, all in captivity in Sabah. The last time a Sumatran rhino was sighted in Peninsular Malaysia was in 2007.
In Indonesia’s Kalimantan and Sumatra, less than 100 of the speciesreamin in the wild.
Dr Junaidi Payne of the Borneo Rhino Alliance, one of the report’s 11 authors, told The Star that the Sumatran rhino population was decimated by a lack of breeding and unchecked poaching.
He also advocated a multinational effort to bring the Sumatran Rhino population back from the brink of extinction.
“We should certainly be thinking of boosting Sumatran rhino numbers through a single programme that is not based on nationalistic thinking.”
The Sumatran rhino is Malaysia’s last surviving rhino species. Its cousin, the Javan rhino, went extinct here after the last of its kind in Malaya was shot in 1932.
The Natural Resources and Environment Ministry could not be reached for comment.
