Sabah on mission to stamp out poaching

Bornean banteng or wild buffalo.

KOTA KINABALU: An anti-terror approach will be employed to counter the poaching of Sabah’s wildlife, with some species reaching the tipping point towards extinction.

The Sabah Forestry Department envisions a quick-response enforcement unit trained by elite British SAS personnel as well as veteran anti-poaching rangers from Africa.

Sabah chief conservator of forests Datuk Sam Mannan said a wildlife crime analyst unit is also being planned, as well as a specially trained legal team to prosecute poachers.

He said the authorities may also pay for information leading to the arrest of poachers too.

“It is critical to have strong surveillance and intelligence-gathering capabilities,” he said when opening an international workshop on conservation of the Bornean banteng (wild cattle) here yesterday.

The proposed wildlife protection unit will comprise 50 armed rangers divided into 10 teams that would constantly patrol areas vulnerable to poaching activities.

“The crime analyst unit will sift through the results from intelligence gathering and camera traps to put us in a position to intercept the culprits,” Mannan added.

He said some poachers hunt for sport or illegal trade – for example, shooting elephants for their tusks or banteng for their meat.

“What is worrying is that some senior plantation employees are involved in poaching,” he said, adding that the assistant manager of a plantation was recently detained on suspicion of poaching.

He said animals like the banteng and payau (a deer species) are being killed for their meat, a lot of which ends up in the peninsula where there is high demand.

Wildlife research NGO Danau Girang Field Centre (DGFC) director Dr Benoit Goossens said Sabah’s banteng population is only around 400 animals and the species is at the tipping point towards extinction.

“We have isolated populations in places like Sipitang, as well as central, south-eastern and north-eastern Sabah. If the killing continues, the banteng will go in the way of our Sumatran rhinos that are virtually extinct,” he added.

He said captive breeding programmes could help augment the small, isolated populations.

Wildlife experts have warned that other animals under threat include the Bornean elephants, numbering around 2,000, and the orang utan which total fewer than 10,000.