Wildlife Asia Walkathon- the Asian Rhino Project collaborates to raise money for endangered species

The Australian Orangutan Project, Asian Rhino Project, Free the Bears and the Silvery Gibbon Project, all long standing Registered Australian Environmental Organisations, have joined to form a new umbrella organisation called ‘Wildlife Asia’. The primary objective of Wildlife Asia is to increase conservation contribution, capacity and efficiency for wildlife conservation. We are holding our first fundraising event to launch this exciting new partnership on Sunday 18th March 2012 in Perth. Please visit our events page http://www.asianrhinos.org.au/index.php/events/to find out more details.

Read more >> Added: Thu Feb 2012 Relating to: All Species

Pregnancy at the Sumatran Rhino Sanctuary!!

A Sumatran rhino which is 10-months pregnant is receiving special medical care after suffering two miscarriages, a conservationist said Thursday, fuelling hope for the critically-endangered species.

The nine-year old rhino, named Ratu, is expected to give birth in July to only the fourth Sumatran rhino born in captivity and the first in Indonesia.

Her partner Andalas, born in the United States in 2001, was the first Sumatran rhino born in captivity in over 112 years.

"We have given her special hormone treatments to lessen the risk of miscarriage. Thank God, it is working well and we hope she'll have a successful birth," Widodo Ramono from the Rhino Foundation of Indonesia told AFP.

"It will be the first Sumatran rhino born in captivity in Indonesia," Ramono added.

Ratu and Andalas were paired in 2009 at a sanctuary in Way Kambas national park in Lampung, South Sumatra province, two years after Andalas was brought from the Cincinnati zoo for a breeding programme.

Andalas is the only remaining male Sumatran rhino at Way Kambas since Torgamba, another male, died last year. The sanctuary has three female Sumatran rhinos.

http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5jEIIntExT2oRoLYTylvy_48kWL9Q?docId=CNG.9b85f775f5b7b19e457520d9fc90094f.151

Read more >> Added: Fri Feb 2012 Relating to: Sumatran Rhino

Latest Addition to Malayasia’s Borneo Rhino Sanctuary offers hope

Captured in a Borneo forest on Christmas Day, she is the latest addition to Malaysia's Borneo Rhino Sanctuary -- and experts say she may also be one of the last hopes for a species on the brink of extinction.

Veterinarians want to introduce Puntung to Tam, a 20-year-old male Sumatran rhinoceros in the enclosure next door, in the hopes that they will breed -- although this cannot take place for a number of months yet, until Puntung is deemed ready.

Estimated to be 10 to 12 years old, she was airlifted to the sanctuary in the Tabin Forest Reserve after her capture, and has since been adjusting to her new home, eating more than 60 kg of leaves each day.

"She doesn't look stressed, she's eating well ... but the stress (of a new environment) is enough to offset her cycle, her normal cycle," said Zainal Zahari Zainuddin, a veterinarian with the Borneo Rhino Alliance.

"So she may not have a cycle now. That's why we're monitoring her."

Captive breeding is now regarded as the only way to boost the population of the two-horned Sumatran rhino, which at 500 to 600 kg and 1.3 metres tall is the world’s smallest rhino.

Though she is the right age to breed, she may well turn out to be infertile, said John Payne, at the Borneo Rhino Alliance. "The rhinos that were caught in Malaysia. Peninsular Malaysia, Sabah and Sumatra in the past ... quite a few wild caught females did have reproductive tract problems. They weren't producing eggs or they had cysts or tumors in the fallopian tubes," Payne said.

"So we are not over the hurdle yet. It may prove that she's not fertile, in which case we need to go on what sort of treatments might be possible to make her fertile."

If Puntung shows signs of being ready after six months of observation, she'll be released into an enclosure with Tam, who walked out of a palm oil plantation in 2008 and refused to go back into the forest.

The two are now being kept in adjacent paddocks so each is aware of the other's existence. But Sumatran rhinos are solitary animals and only come together in the wild for courtship and the rearing of young.

http://www.timescolonist.com/news/Rhino+romance+last+hope/6034100/story.html

Read more >> Added: Thu Feb 2012 Relating to: Sumatran Rhino

Wildlife Asia Walkathon- the Asian Rhino Project collaborates to raise money for endangered species

The Australian Orangutan Project, Asian Rhino Project, Free the Bears and the Silvery Gibbon Project, all long standing Registered Australian Environmental Organisations, have joined to form a new umbrella organisation called 'Wildlife Asia'. The primary objective of the Wildlife Asia is to increase conservation contribution, capacity and efficiency for wildlife conservation. We are holding our first fundraising event to launch this exciting new partnership on Sunday 18th March 2012 in Perth. Please visit our events page http://www.asianrhinos.org.au/index.php/events/to find out more details.

Read more >> Added: Thu Jan 2012 Relating to: All Species

Search on for Sumatran Rhino

The number of Sumatran rhinoceroses in the peninsula has dwindled to a level where one rhino might never meet another of its kind in its entire lifetime. Wildlife and National Parks Department (Perhilitan) conservation division senior assistant director Mohd Samsudin Mohd Suri said it had been more than 15 years since a Sumatran rhinoceros had been seen in the wild. Read more at http://news.asiaone.com/News/AsiaOne%2BNews/Malaysia/Story/A1Story20111229-318854.html

Read more >> Added: Wed Jan 2012 Relating to: Sumatran Rhino

Rhinos given fake horns- 22 Dec 2011

A Swiss museum has taken the drastic step of replacing the horns of its rhinos with fakes to deter thieves fuelling a lucrative global trade.

Read more >> Added: Wed Jan 2012 Relating to: All Species

Capture of rare rhino gives hope for species

Malaysian wildlife authorities say the capture of a young Borneo Sumatran rhino gives them a last chance to save the highly endangered species from extinction.

The female rhino, aged between 10 and 12, was caught on December 18 and is being kept in the Tabin Wildlife Reserve in Sabah on the Malaysian area of Borneo island.

It is hoped it will breed with a lone captive male.

"All of us in Sabah are relieved that we have been able to capture this rhino after almost a year-and-a-half," Borneo Rhino Alliance director Junaidi Payne said.

The female rhino, which has been named Puntung, was caught in a joint operation by the Borneo Rhino Alliance and the Sabah Wildlife Department.

Read the full article at http://www.abc.net.au/news/2011-12-26/capture-of-rare-rhino-gives-hope-for-species/3747788

Read more >> Added: Tue Dec 2011 Relating to: Sumatran Rhino

1 in 4 mammals are at risk of extinction- IUCN warns

27th November 2011 – The good news: conservation works. The flipside: wildlife is so fragile that some of it may be lost forever.

This, according to the latest updated Red List released this month by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN).

The Red List, with more than 61,900 species reviewed, is the world’s definitive watchlist of species. It is a rich compendium of information on the threats to the species, their ecological requirements, where they live and information on conservation actions that can be used to reduce or prevent extinctions.

According to the Red List, despite conservation programs, one out of four mammals are at risk of extinction.

For example, the reassessments of several rhinoceros species show that the Western Black Rhino in western Africa is extinct. The Northern White Rhino in central Africa is now on the brink of extinction and has been listed as possibly extinct in the wild.

The Javan Rhino is also making its last stand and is probably extinct, following the poaching of what is thought to be the last in Vietnam in 2010.

Although this is not the end of the Javan Rhino, it does reduce the species to a single, tiny and declining population on Java, Indonesia.

The main threats: lack of political support and will power for conservation efforts in many rhino habitats, international organized crime groups targeting rhinos and increasing illegal demand for rhino horns and commercial poaching.

"In the case of both the Western Black Rhino and the Northern White Rhino the situation could have had very different results if the suggested conservation measures had been implemented," says Simon Stuart, Chair of the IUCN Species Survival Commission. "These measures must be strengthened now, specifically managing habitats in order to improve breeding performance, preventing other rhinos from fading into extinction."

Read more >> Added: Tue Dec 2011 Relating to: All Species