Elephant Satellite-Collaring to help understand their social behaviour
10 October 2010
A new Bornean elephant was fitted with a satellite collar on 5 October 2010 in the Lot 7 of the Lower Kinabatangan Wildlife Sanctuary (LKWS) as part of a collaborative project between the Sabah Wildlife Department, the NGO HUTAN and Danau Girang Field Centre. This project is funded by the Asian Elephant Conservation Fund from the US Fish and Wildlife Service, Mohamed bin Zayed Species Conservation Fund, Elephant Family, Houston Zoo and Columbus Zoo.
One of the aims of this project is to collect crucial information on the social behaviour, mating strategies and dispersal of the elephant in the Kinabatangan to contribute to proper management of the population. We are using satellite and VHF technology to locate collared elephants such as this one and are currently testing a new unit, providing 24 GPS locations per day and using a local network to send the data to a server three times per day.
Part of the project is also to build the capacity of young scientists and conservationists in Sabah. Nurzhafarina Othman, who recently registered at Cardiff University to carry out her PhD on this project, is one of them. We decided to name the elephant female Aqeela, after Nurzhafarina’s 6-month old daughter.
More elephants will be collared in the future, as the data also provide important information on the available suitable elephant habitat in the region, allowing our department to prioritise crucial areas in order to rebuild landscape connectivity along the Kinabatangan river.
Summer 2010: Elephant Family sponsors the Kinabatangan elephant project
This summer, Elephant Family, a registered charity in England devoted to elephant conservation, provided a large grant towards Danau Girang Field Centre's work on elephant social behaviour. Find more information on Elephant Family at http://www.elephantfamily.org