Borneo elephant: Difference between revisions

Borneo Elephant
Conservation status
Endangered  (IUCN 3.1)[1]
Scientific classification
Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Chordata
Class:	Mammalia
Order:	Proboscidea
Family:	Elephantidae
Genus:	Elephas
Species:	E. maximus
Subspecies:	E. m. borneensis
Trinomial name
Elephas maximus borneensis Deraniyagala , 1950

The Borneo Elephant also called the Borneo Pygmy Elephant inhabits northeastern

Borneo elephants are smaller than all the other subspecies. They are also remarkably tame and passive, another reason some scientists think they descended from a domestic collection.[3]^[4]

Distribution and habitat

Elephants have been confined to the northern and northeastern parts of Borneo.

The origin of Borneo elephants is controversial. Two competing hypotheses argued that they are either indigenous, or were introduced, descending from elephants imported in the 16th–18th centuries. At the center of their history lies the true ownership of Sabah, the land they inhabit and now being claimed by both Malaysia and the Philippines. In 2003, mitochondrial DNA research revealed that its ancestors separated from the mainland population during the Pleistocene, about 30,000 years ago. The subspecies currently living in Borneo possibly became isolated from other Asian elephant populations when land bridges that linked Borneo with the other Sunda Islands and the mainland disappeared after the Last Glacial Maximum, 18,000 years ago.^[3] Isolation may be the reason it has become smaller with relatively larger ears, longer tails, and relatively straight tusks. Other scientists argue that the Borneo elephant was introduced by the Sultan of Sulu and abandoned, and that the population on Sulu, never considered to be native, was imported from Java.^[7]

From a historical perspective, the arrival of these elephants in the north Kalimantan region of Borneo coincides with the rule of the Sultans of Sulu over Sabah, the entire stretch of land the junior Royal House of Brunei gave up in favor of the Sulu sultan and his family and the support of Sulu's royal navies and mercenaries, rumored to be the most vicious and indestructible in all of the Muslim kingdoms in that part of the world at that time.

The Sultanate of Sulu (Philippines) enjoyed peaceful ties with the populated Hindu Sultanate of Java (Indonesia). Brides were exchanged between the royal houses. The Sultanate of Sulu, known for its very large pearls and rule of the Upper Sunda Islands specifically the Sulu Sea, regularly gave the same treasures to the Sultanate of Java. As a token of appreciation, the rulers of the Java Sultanate sent their elephants to Sulu, much as they have sent Javanese elephants to the Sultanate of Maguindanao, which also partly gives the reason why skeletal remains of small elephants are found in Mindanao, south Philippines. Revered in Hindu religion, the elephants were gifts between royal houses and never killed.

After a few centuries, Java and Sulu embraced Islam. What were revered elephants in their midst became pests and driven away from plantations full of fruits and produce that elephants enjoy. They survived under the auspices of rich patrons, or lived in a feral manner in the communities of Sulu.

In the 15th century, the Royal House of Brunei, a largely neutral coastal kingdom, was ruled by Bolkiah of Brunei. His father-in-law was Sulu Sultan Amir Ul-Ombra (Amir Ul-Umara), also known as the Sultan Bolkiah of Sulu. Fearing an imminent attack due to the Kalimantan Revolt in southern Borneo, the junior Bolkiah rulers of Brunei negotiated for senior Bolkiah rulers of Sulu to protect them, for the rulers of the tiny island of Sulu can command even the support of Java's and Maguindanao's royals, all relatives of the Sulu lords. Brunei exchanged Sabah and two of their princesses to be the junior wives of the Sultan's sons. The political gambit was successful. Brunei remained independent and separate from the rising sultans in Malaya and Aceh, who were widely believed to have provoked a civil war in Brunei to topple the equally rising Bolkiah dynasty in Brunei.

The Sultan of Sulu and his families shipped some of their prized Javanese elephants to northeast Borneo due to lack of land and for the elephants to help in hauling logs out of the forest to create fast and long ship vessels.

The Sultanate of Sulu became a military power due to its navy. As such, the Sultanate of Sulu had little effective use for the vast expanse of Sabah. It was a source for lumber and minerals for now, a destination for their countrymen to build houses and cultivate small scale coconut plantations, and as a feeding ground for their elephants, who by then were at the center of conflicts with the Muslim locals of Sulu. Also, the Sulu sultans were not worried about encroachment by other royal clans; their relatives the Bolkiahs of Brunei live adjacent to Sabah. Thus, many peoples from what is now the Philippines and Sabah crossed freely between these areas.

The Sultanate of Sulu leased Sabah to an Englishman. When this lease was signed, most of these timid and largely domesticated small elephants under the employ of Sulu's shipbuilders and traders were released into the forests so they can live deep inside the jungle away from any feuding sultan who might use them for war. This single act of compassion of releasing the pachyderms to the wild away from even his own subjects in Jolo made the Bolkiah family of Sulu and their allies the savior of what remaining elephants are left, old locals attest.

The self-proclaimed

Thus the Borneo elephant actually may be the extinct Javan elephant. Many facts support this hypothesis, including no archaeological evidence of long term elephant habitation of Borneo, a corroboration in folklore and the lack of the elephants colonizing the entire island of Borneo.^[8]

Conservation

Elephas maximus is listed on

Wild Asian elephant populations are disappearing as deforestation in Borneo disrupts their migration routes, depletes their food sources, and destroys their habitat. Recognizing these elephants as native to Borneo makes their conservation a high priority and gives biologists important clues about how to manage them.^[9]

A 2010 study found that there are an estimated 2,040 elephants living in five main ranges in Sabah. The largest of the five range populations was in the unprotected central forests of Sabah, a contiguous area of forest which is largely commercial forest, where 1,132 elephants were estimated to remain. Elephant density (elephants per square kilometre) was found to be highest where neighbouring habitat had been destroyed and the remaining elephants squeezed into the remaining forest areas.^[10]

The Oregon Zoo in Portland has the only Borneo Elephant in the United States, a seventeen-year-old female orphan called Chendra. There are plans to breed Chendra with the zoo's Tusko.

See also

• Pygmy elephant
• Insular dwarfism
• Deforestation in Borneo

References

External links

• WWF: Borneo elephant