Category: Indonesia

Sumatran Rhino

Sumatran Rhinoceros Photo Credit Kat Jenkinson

Sumatran Rhinoceros

Sumatran rhino is also known as a  hairy rhinoceros or Asian two-horned rhinoceros. Like the Javan rhino, the Sumatran rhino once had a range which covered a far larger area: rainforests, swamps and cloud forests in India, Bhutan, Bangladesh, Myanmar, Laos, Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia and southwestern China, particularly in Sichuan.

There are still 3 on the island of Borneo, as you can see, the map still lists a population on the Malay peninsula though it is thought that this group is extinct. The 3 subspecies are:

  • The Sumatran island population: Western (34-47 individuals). This is unfortunately split in to 4 populations
  • The Borneo island population: Eastern (may be as low as 3). This was only discovered in 2016 in            East Kalimantan, after the population in Sabah, Malaysia (northern part of the island) was declared extinct in 2015
  • The mainland population: Northern (this is thought to be extinct as of 2010, but it is possible that a small group remain.
The Sumatran rhino spends most of its life alone, except for courtship and raising of young. It is more vocal than other rhino species, as well as communicating through marking soil with its feet, twisthing saplings into patterns, and leaving excrement. the species is much better studied than the similarly hard to see or find, for the Javan rhinoceros, in part because of a program which bought 40 Sumatran rhino into captivity in an attempt to preserve the species. Though a number of rhinos died once at the various destinations, and no offspring were produced for 20 years.

 

Only four areas are known to contain Sumatran rhinoceros: Bukit Barisan Selatan National park, Gunung Leuser national park, and Way Kambas National park on Sumatra, and on Borneo west of Samarindah.

We hope to be able to list trekking for seeing animals like this in the future, do get in touch if you work in this field.

Javan Rhino

Javan Rhinoceros

Javan rhino are on the verge of extinction. They are currently restricted to the island of Java in Indonesia. Unfortunately, this is a bigger issue than a rare species that is likely to vanish from Java in the near future.

Up until the middle of the 1800, this rhinoceros species was found Java and Sumatra and onto the mainland of Southeast Asia and Indochina, northwest into East India, Bhutan, and the south of China.

Now, one might argue that many species had wider ranges 150 years ago, but the Javan rhino only declared extinct in Vietnam, back in 2010. In other words, just 13 years ago this species lost its last hold on the Asian mainland. Their closest relative is the Indian greater one-horned rhino (though this is not a recent split, they are separate species).

Now they are restricted to one national park in Java which sits on the far western tip. Here, lies the Ujung Kulon national park, a wilderness covering 1206km2 (466miles2) though 443km2 (171miles2) of that is marine. In this wilderness, roams the last Javan rhinos on the planet. It is currently thought that there are 74 of them in this area. It should be noted that the population has grown since the below video was made – mentions the population as 73.

Furthermore, the Javan and Sumatran Rhino species are not closely related, indeed with the Sumatran Rhino, it is thought to be more closely related to the African rhino, rather than the Asian Rhino species.

Below is an incredibly rare bit of footage of Javan rhino in their small patch of remaining wilderness, from a charity called SAFE (Saving Animals From Extinction).

Other animals found here include 35 endemic mammal species can be found in the park, including the banteng, silvery gibbon, Javan lutung, Crab-eating macaque, Javan leopard, Sumatran dhole, Java mouse-deer, Javan rusa, fishing can and smoothcoated otter. There are also 72 species of reptiles and amphibians and 240 species of birds

Javan Tiger

Javan Tiger

The Javan tiger was a population native to the Indonesian island of Java until the mid-1970s. It was hunted to extinction, and its natural habitat converted for agricultural land use and infrastructure. It was one of the three tiger populations in the Sunda Islands.

Formerly, it was regarded as a distinct tiger subspecies, which had been assessed as extinct on the IUCN Red List in 2008. However, new genetic analysis clearly showed that it is not distinct enough to be able to be a separate species.

Results of mitochondrial DNA analysis of 23 tiger samples from museum collections indicate that tigers colonized the Sunda Islands during the last glacial period 110,000–12,000 years ago.

As a result, should some space be made for this species to return it could. It is unlikely in the near future.

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