First-Ever Camera Trap Video of Rare Borneo Rhino

WWF has captured the first-ever "camera trap" footage of a species that just a few people have ever seen. WWF and Malaysia's Sabah Wildlife Department released footage of a Borneo Rhino which shows it eating, walking to the camera and sniffing the equipment. The first still photo of a Borneo rhino was captured only last year.

Researchers estimate there are between 25 and 50 rhinos left on the island of Borneo, the last survivors of the Bornean subspecies of Sumatran rhinos. The rhinos live only in the interior forests of Sabah, Malaysia, an area known as the "Heart of Borneo."

"These are very shy animals that are almost never seen by people," said Mahedi Andau, director of the Sabah Wildlife Department. "This video gives us an amazing opportunity to spy on the rhino's behavior."

There have been no confirmed reports of rhinos on Borneo 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. The rhino's threats include poaching, illegal encroachment into key rhino habitats, and the fact that the remaining rhinos are so isolated that they may rarely or never meet to breed.

"This astonishing footage captures of one of the world's most elusive creatures," said Carter Roberts, CEO and president of World Wildlife Fund. "Tremendous progress has been made in recent years to secure the rhino's habitat but so much more needs to be done considering this species may very well disappear in the next 10 years".

The video is the result of a custom-built camera trap developed by Stephen Hogg at WWF-Malaysia. Hogg first used the camera to capture images of tigers on Peninsular Malaysia. WWF uses camera traps primarily to study animals that are rarely seen in the wild. The images help to, for instance, determine the condition of species, identify individual animals and show how animals behave in the wild.

Recently, the ministers of the three Bornean governments - Brunei Darussalam, Indonesia and Malaysia - signed an historic Declaration to conserve and sustainably manage the Heart of Borneo. This has put the area on the global stage of conservation priorities.

The video, along with new still images of the rhinos, can be viewed Here

Posted by: Kelly    Source