Wild Elephants on the Kinabatangan River
The Cruise
My second experience with elephants was in the wild rainforests of Borneo. I had travelled to Sukau in Sabah, on the north eastern edge of Borneo, through which runs the Kinabatangan river. A few rustic resorts lie along the bank of this river. One of them, The Sukau Rainforest Lodge, is designated a National Geographic Unique Lodge of the World. It was here that I stayed for two nights, and from here that the river wildlife cruises took place.
The Bornean elephant can now be classified as a separate sub-species of Asian elephant.[1] They are about a fifth smaller than the Indian elephant, they have longer tails, shorter trunks, and only some males have tusks, which are shorter and straighter than those on the mainland. The females can also give birth at a younger age. After much speculation and controversy over the origins of the Bornean elephant, a paper published in Nature by Reeta Sharma and Benoit Goossens et al suggests that they have been inhabiting the island for at least 11,000 years.[2] This contradicts a previously held theory that they had been introduced to Borneo only a few hundred years ago by humans.
It was only on the last river cruise that we encountered the elephants – you never left the boat on the cruise, the rainforest itself was strictly off limits. The previous outing had resulted in the sighting of a wealth of wildlife; probiscis monkey, long-tailed and short-tailed macaque, all five species of native hornbill including the rhinoceros hornbill (the largest species in Borneo), sea eagle, silver langur monkey, orang-utan, crocodile, two species of kingfisher, a wild array of butterflies and moths and the very rare and allusive storm’s stalk. I wasn’t aware at the time but there are estimated to be only 260 – 330 storm’s stalks left in the wild.[3]
We had been on the river for twenty minutes on the last day when it began to rain. The light drizzle quickly became a torrential downpour. We had had no luck at spotting elephants, despite finding their fresh prints and dung beside the river. We took shelter beneath an overhanging tree, though it wasn’t enough to prevent us from getting well and truly soaked.
We waited there until my fingers were wrinkled and I was starting to shiver, before we decided to give up. In the intense humidity and release of rain, we could smell the elephants nearby. That distinctive odour wafting out of the forest but bringing with it no sight nor sound from the animals themselves. Feeling resigned to not seeing them at all, we headed back to the lodge, cold and wet.
On the way back we saw two or three boats hovering on the river and so stopped to see what they were looking at. On the side of the riverbank, mostly hidden by bushes and growth, a large female elephant was busily tearing up elephant grass. We all perked up at once. At least waiting for twenty-five minutes in the rain had not proven to be in vain.
All we could see of her was the distinctive bulge of her brow and the occasional glimpse of her trunk as she reached out through the grass. But I didn’t care. There in front of us was a truly wild Bornean elephant.
Not at all disappointed with the obscured view of only one elephant we started to head back, when only a short way down the river we found a young, solitary male elephant sitting in the river, pulling elephant grass off the bank. His mother must have been nearby, as he was only around four years old, but she did not make herself known.
After having enjoyed watching this young bull for a while we once again headed back for the lodge. However, the forest was not done with us yet.
There was some sort of commotion further down the river, by the bank. Water was splashing, brown limbs were darting to and fro. As we got closer it became clear that a group of three young bulls were play fighting in the river.
It was hard to distinguish where one ended and the other began. Trunks writhed and entangled each other, their heads barely out of the water, before one would launch into the air and attempt to drag the others beneath the water. The three exuded such infectious joy and playfulness that our entire boat was grinning from ear to ear. Never had we imagined that we would be privileged enough to witness such intimate and carefree behaviour.
Young bulls will often form small social groups and travel together after having been pushed out of their mother’s herd. They will travel, play and feed together until they reach full sexual maturity, at which point they will fragment to establish their own territories. Quite frequently these bachelor herds will be led by an older male elephant. It has been proven in African elephants that the presence of older males helps to regulate the younger bull’s period of “Musth” – the time of year when they are ready to mate and become more aggressive.[4] Without these older males, the young elephants’ periods of Musth become erratic, leading to hyper-aggressive behaviour and in one case resulting in the young elephants attacking and killing rhinos.[5] This is a major reason why older male elephants should not be killed by trophy hunters, if such a reason was needed.
Above the three wrestling bulls there was a stretch of open ground along the riverbank, a corridor of grass about 100 meters in length that emerged from and disappeared into the forest on both sides. As we watched the bulls, a female elephant and a tiny baby emerged from the forest on the right and into the corridor of grass. The baby must have only been around three months old.
It ran over to the riverbank and peered curiously down at the juvenile males below, its trunk probing the air. Its mother gently nudged her away from the bulls with a slight tap of her trunk. The baby didn’t obey at first, and it took two or three nudges to send it on its way. The baby obeyed and scrambled over the grass, only to be distracted by a sapling tree. It started tugging at it as its mother gave it one last slap from behind with her trunk and started on ahead, her child soon abandoning the sapling and running along at her side. As they reached about halfway along the corridor, the rest of the herd began to emerge. In a slow and majestic procession, around eighteen large females lumbered out from the forest, four or five young and adolescent elephants running along between them.
I was stunned. I watched in amazement as the entire herd progressed across the grass, ignoring us entirely; their ears flapping, trunks testing the ground and air as they went. As they reached the far side of the corridor their massive forms became shadows, disappearing into the forest one by one.
I watched till the last of them was swallowed by the forest and lost to sight. Something that happens remarkably quickly considering their size. Unless you could smell or hear them, an elephant could be standing less than ten meters away and you wouldn’t know it.
After having witnessed the horrors of Chinese zoos, this had been remarkable. To see an entire family, wild and free, was a great privilege. This was the life those elephants in China had been denied, a life they will now never have. They had mothers, sisters, aunts and cousins. A family. All likely now dead or captive. They carried, and still carry, the ghosts of their families with them. The trauma of their loss at the root of many of their behavioural problems and issues.
We left for the lodge soon after, stunned and amazed at what we had seen, the three bulls still wrestling in the water.
But of course, all is not well in the jungles of Borneo. The very fact that we were able to witness this display of elephants speaks directly to the probem.
The Issue
Forty years ago 75% of Borneo was covered in forests – that number has since reduced by 30%.[6] Most recently palm oil has made headlines as the enemy of conservation, and whilst a major factor, it is only one contributing factor. Farming and the timber industry are historically by far the largest culprits. Though now, a large amount of the land originally used for logging is being transformed into palm oil plantations, and more primary rainforest is being lost every year to meet the demands of this industry.[7]
All along the Kinabatangan river, as I witnessed, massive areas are now a sea of palm trees. The wildlife that has managed to survive is being forced into smaller and smaller isolated pockets of land. The indigenous people of the area would tell you that until ten years ago, it was incredibly rare to see elephants in Borneo. They are naturally reclusive animals, and upon hearing the approach of a human would often shrink away into the forest. Now however, due to diminishing habitat, they are being forced into closer proximity with man. The river, one of the last natural highways through the land, draws them close as they attempt to reach other areas of the forest that are now cut off to them.
This fragmentation of forest habitat can have dire consequences. Elephants, whilst generally living in small herds of between 8 – 20, often gather into much larger herds for periods of time. Such gatherings are now impossible. The genetic diversity of each herd is now limited to the individuals within each pocket of forest.
Each adult needs roughly 150kg of food each day.[8] An elephant herd is constantly on the move, eating what they can, and then only returning to that area once the food source has regrown. With the loss of habitat, the elephants are being forced to revisit the same feeding sites again and again, before they can regenerate, depleting their food sources a little more with each visit.
Not all hope is lost though. A 10-year study is currently under way into the use of wildlife corridors in palm oil plantations. Rob Ewers, an ecologist at Imperial College London, is leading a study called SAFE.[9] With a team of researchers, he is studying the different types and sizes of rainforest fragments and their impact on biodiversity. They have been granted access to land being converted to palm oil plantation by a Malaysian based company Sime Darby. It is one of the world’s largest ecological experiments, covering an area of at least 8,000 hectares. Much like the natural corridor of the river, wildlife corridors provide uninterrupted forest habitat between two separate areas, through or beside a plantation. They are studying different sizes of corridors and the effects this has on wildlife populations in the areas affected.
Many elephants are currently forced to walk through plantations in order to reach other forest areas. Along the way they eat some of the palm leaves, something they normally wouldn’t do as it isn’t a food of their choice, to sustain their journey. This leads them into conflict with the plantation owners who see them as pests. As such it is not uncommon for snares to be set to capture and kill trespassing elephants.[10]
Whilst efforts are being made to reforest areas and limit the destruction of others, it is worth noting that the loss of primary rainforest is something quite devastating to wildlife. Much of the forest along the Kinabatangan river is now secondary forest, the primary forest having been cut down for the logging industry. It would take centuries for secondary forest to regrow into primary forest, if indeed such a thing is possible at all. The tree species distribution is entirely different, and excludes large portions of wildlife from returning. Nowhere are the giant trees of the primary rainforest, and gone are the species that called them home.
As I arrived back at the lodge, I couldn’t help but feel conflicted. What I had just seen had been wonderful, but it wasn’t something that I should have been able to see. It was an experience born out of destruction, a situation that was forcing the elephants into a position they would not choose to be in. Regardless of the morals behind it, it is something I will never forget. I hope that they will forever be wild and free.
[1] John C Cannon, ‘New Study Suggests Borneo’s had Elephants for Thousands of Years’ Mongabay (31 Jan 2018) <New study suggests Borneo’s had elephants for thousands of years (mongabay.com)> Accessed on 22 Sept 2019
[2] Reeta Sharma et al, ‘Genetic Analyses Favour an Ancient and Natural Origin of Elephants on Borneo’ (2018) 8 Science Reports 880 <Genetic analyses favour an ancient and natural origin of elephants on Borneo | Scientific Reports (nature.com)> Accessed on 22 Sept 2019
[3] Birdlife International, ‘Ciconia Stormi’ (The ICUN Red List of Threatened Species 2017) <Ciconia stormi (Storm’s Stork) (iucnredlist.org)> Accessed on 22 Sept 2019
[4] Rob Slotow et al, ‘Older Bull Elephants Control Young Males’ (2000) 408 Nature 425
[5] R Slotow and G Van Dyk, ‘Role of Delinquent Young ‘Orphan’ Male Elephants in High Mortality of White Rhinoceros in Pilanesberg National Park, South Africa’ (2001) 44(1) Koedoe 85
[6] David L A Gaveau et al, ‘Four Decades of Forest Persistence, Clearance and Logging on Borneo’ (2014) 9(7) PLoS ONE <Four Decades of Forest Persistence, Clearance and Logging on Borneo (plos.org)> Accessed on 06 August 2021
[7] Will de Freitas, ‘No, Palm Oil is not Responsible for 405 of Global Deforestation’ The Conversation (8 June 2017) <No, palm oil is not responsible for 40% of global deforestation (theconversation.com)> Accessed on 22 Sept 2019
[8] WWF, ‘Asian Elephants’ (World Wide Fund for Nature, 2021) <Asian elephants | WWF (panda.org)> Accessed on 8 August 2021
[9] Becca Cudmore, ‘Designing the Ideal Wildlife Corridor for Malasia’s Orangutans’ Mongabay (18 April 2106) <Designing the ideal wildlife corridor for Malaysia’s orangutans (mongabay.com)> Accessed on 22 Sept 2019
[10] ‘More Elephants Killed by Snares – WWF’ The Borneo Post Online (Sabah, 29 August 2018) <More elephants killed by snares – WWF (theborneopost.com)> Accessed on 22 Sept 2019
