By Muguntan Vanar

KOTA KINABALU: Rare footage of the elusive Sumatran rhinoceros has been captured in a two-minute video “camera trap” placed inside the Sabah forest.

According to a statement by WWF Malaysia, the video showed the animal eating, walking to the camera and sniffing the equipment.

Rare sight: Footage of the Sumatran rhino released by WWF Malaysia after it was captured in a two-minute video camera trap in Sabah recently.

“This is the first-ever footage of behaviour in the wild of one of the world’s rarest rhinos,” it said yesterday. Scientists estimate there are only between 25 and 50 rhinos left on the island of Borneo.

These last survivors of the Bornean subspecies of Sumatran rhinoceros are believed to be found in the “Heart of Borneo,” the interior dense forests of Sabah. The rhinos are so elusive that the first-ever still photo of one was captured only last year.

“These are very shy animals so this video gives us an amazing opportunity to see the rhino’s behaviour,” said Sabah Wildlife Department director Mahedi Andau. The video camera trap that captured the footage was developed by Malaysia WWF Audio Visual head Stephen Hogg, who successfully tested the video camera trap on the Malayan tigers in Peninsula Malaysia. Photos and video footages can determine the condition of rhinos, help identify individual animals and show how they behave in the wild.

On Borneo, there have been no confirmed reports of rhino sightings, apart from those in Sabah, for almost 20 years, leading experts to fear that the species may now be extinct on the rest of the island.

Major threats include poaching, illegal encroachment into rhino habitats, and the fact that the remaining rhinos are so isolated that they may rarely or never meet to breed.

“These rhinos could face extinction in the next 10 years if their habitat continues to be disturbed and enforcement is not in place,” said Raymond Alfred, project manager for WWF Malaysia’s Asian Rhino and Elephant Action Strategy.