IMAN'S DEATH IS A CALL OF THE HOURS FOR WILDLIFE CONSERVATIONISTS FOR SUMATRAN RHINO

By MONOJ GOGOI


Iman's death on November 23, 2019 is a big blow to the existence of the Sumatran Rhino (Dicerorhinus Sumatrensis) species. Iman, a 25-year old female and the last Sumatran rhino in Malaysia. The Sabah government officials claim Iman's death was natural but she had uterine tumour when she was captured from the wild in 2014. Tam was the last Sumatran rhino in Malaysia who died in May this year at the age of 30 year in the same Malaysian sanctuary Borneo. Sumatran rhinos, also called "hairy rhinos", enlisted in the red list as "critically endangered" by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN). According to the IUCN only fewer than 80 Sumatran rhinos exist in the rainforests of Indonesia. But according to the World Wildlife Fund (WWF)'s estimation, the population of this species as low as 30. Once this species roamed all over the rainforests of Asia. Unfortunately now the Sumatran rhinos are found in Indonesia only. That's to too little, less than 80 in numbers.

Rhino experts and Indonesian government officials agreed on a consensus that only way to bring back the Sumatran rhino back from the brink of extinction is to relocate the widely disperse wild populations to breeding facilities designed specifically for the care.

The IUCN Species Survival Commission (SSC) working with National Geographic Society, World Wildlife Fund, International Rhino Foundation, Global Wildlife Conservation and Government of Indonesia in an alliance to save the Sumatran Rhino that exists in four isolated regions across 1000 square miles of rainforests on the Indonesian islands of Sumatra and Borneo.

Specifically, Sumatran Rhino Rescue focuses its activities in three key areas of the species conservation and care:

* Capacity Building: Establishing two new Sumatran Rhino Sanctuaries in Indonesia- one in Indonesian Borneo and the another in northern Sumatra; and expanding the existing facilities in Way Kambas National Park.

* Search and Rescue: Undertaking search and rescue operations to move Sumatran rhinos to manage conservation breeding facilities; and

* Care and Protection: Incorporating rhinos in to a single conservation for breeding programme.

In a year ago, in November, 2018, the alliance successfully rescued and relocated a female rhino to secure facility in Kalimantan with the support of local partners. The rescue was the first major activity of the conservation - breeding programme led by the Sumatran Rhino Rescue to save the species from extinction and eventually partially successful to bri back to the wild and to increased in numbers.

In May, 2019, the Sumatran Rhino Rescue welcomed the Cincinnati Zoo and Botanical Garden, Save the Rhino International and Wilhelma Zoological and Botanical Garden Stuttgart, to the ground breaking effort to save the Sumatran rhino.

In the past two decades the Sumatran rhino decreased 70 percent - mostly due to poaching, but poaching this animal is too difficult as it stays solitude in dense and  doesn't live in herd. Low birth rate is another reason behind the declining of the Sumatran rhino population. Females give birth about every three to five years intervals. Rhino experts use reproductive technology though it is very difficult and complicated. The knowledge about the reproductive physiology is still very limited. But in-vitro fertilisation is used but no success could be achieved so far.