Animal News (Except Bigcats)

[Rishi]

(11-30-2018, 07:54 PM)Sanju Wrote: Very very sad news yaaa..rr!!!
Another giant has left us: the Sumatran rhino is extinct in the wild
Environment
Published on 24 Apr 2015
by
Lorenzo Brenna
Leggi l'articolo in italiano
In the Malaysian state of Sabah there are no Sumatran rhinos left in the wild, the Environment Minister says.
The eastern Sumatran rhinoceros (Dicerorhinus sumatrensis harrissoni), also known as the Bornean rhino, is the world’s smallest rhino. It’s a subspecies of the Sumatran rhino (Dicerorhinus sumatrensis) and is a shy and solitary creature that inhabits Bornean forests.

*This image is copyright of its original author

A Sumatran rhino
Poaching and deforestation behind their extinction
Or better, it used to inhabit. In fact, according to Environment Minister Masidi Manjun, there are no Sumatran rhinos left in the wild in the Malaysian state of Sabah. About 50 rhinos lived there in 2008, five years later there were only ten individuals left, and today they’re likely to be extinct.
The decline of this species is mainly linked to two factors: poaching for rhino horns (the horn actually doesn’t have any medical properties, contrary to many people’s beliefs), and habitat loss due to deforestation, mainly carried out to make place for oil palm plantations and human settlements.

*This image is copyright of its original author

Sumatran rhinos
The end of an ancient species?
There are currently only three surviving Sumatran rhinos in Sabah, two females and one male (Iman, Puntung and Tam), held in fenced, natural conditions at the Borneo Rhinoceros Sanctuary (BRS). But they seem to have problems reproducing.
“There is still hope to save the species from extinction. The only way to achieve that now is to use in vitro fertilisation,” according to John Payne, the Executive Director of the Borneo Rhino Alliance (BORA) and one of the world’s top experts on the species.
Sumatran rhinos originate from the Pleistocene, when they lived freely in the forests of India, Bangladesh, Myanmar, Laos, Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia and China, until 1930, when people started hunting them for their horns, which were traded with Chinese people in exchange for porcelain objects.  

*This image is copyright of its original author

A Sumatran rhino
Gradually, rhinos started hiding in thick forests, but humans deforested these areas allowing poachers to reach them. Another animal species is on the brink of extinction, due to humanity’s endless lust for blood.
There’s still hope to save these mammals that appeared on Earth 20 million years ago, and to allow them to continue roaming wild in our planet’s forests.
https://www.lifegate.com/people/news/sum...d-in-sabah

Dude, you almost have me a heart attack! This is a 2015 news...

Sumatran rhinos on Malay Peninsula & Borneo of Malaysia were declared extinct that year after decades of no sightings. But there were two cases confirming their presence in 2016, one in Indonesian Borneo another in Malaysia.

They are critically endangered but still present on islands of Sumatra & Borneo. Reply