Source : Berita Wilayah, Malaysia, 13 Jul '08
By : Bernama
  

Danau Girang Field Centre conservation biologist Nurzhafarina Othman said studies on the genetic aspects of the Bornean elephant had been carried out in the past but their social structure was virtually unknown.

"The collaring of the elephants is to ease our access to them. The bulk of the study will be done with actual field work together with the Elephant Conservation Unit (ECU).

"We will carry out actual observation and collect DNA information via the faeces of particular individuals," she said in statement issued jointly by the Sabah Wildlife Department, Danau Girang Field Centre and HUTAN, a French non-governmental organisation, Sunday.

Nurzhafarina is heading the studies.

The ECU, which was founded by HUTAN in 2002 to address the issue of human-elephant conflict, will spend hundreds of man hours tracking the three elephants for the landmark study.

Sabah Wildlife Department chief field veterinarian Dr Senthilvel Nathan said with more data, elephants in the Kinabatangan region could be managed more effectively.

"Unlike in previous collaring by WWF-Malaysia where the elephants were only followed via the satellite, this study is different because we pick the individuals we wanted to collar to study their social structure," he said.

The social structure that will be studied include ascertaining the mating pattern and identifying dominant males.

The study intends to collar a large male bull which is usually solitary except when mating, a large female which is the matriarch and leads the group and an adolescent male which remains close to the group.

However, instead of an adolescent male, the team decided to collar an adult female which had been previously collared by WWF-Malaysia, as data on her movement was already available.