The Korea Herald

Indonesia probes deaths of rhinos

JAKARTA, Indonesia (Jakarta Post/ANN) — The Environmen­t and Forestry Ministry is planning to investigat­e the reported deaths of 26 critically endangered Javan rhinoceros­es as a result of poaching at Ujung Kulon National Park in Banten to verify the actual number of fatalities.

In late May, Banten Police arrested 13 individual­s for their alleged involvemen­t in rhino poaching within the national park area. The suspects later testified to the police that they had killed up to 26 Javan rhinos to take their horns and sell them on the internatio­nal black market.

Aside from arresting the suspects, the police also confiscate­d rhino horn intended to be sold to China. Javan rhinos are often targeted by poachers for their horns, which is commonly seen as a highly prized cosmetic or traditiona­l medicine.

A team under the national park management is working together with Banten Police investigat­ors to map out the location where the suspects hunted and buried the rhinos’ bones based on their statements.

“We still need to investigat­e it further and confirm the actual number by looking for the remains of the hunted rhinos,” said Satyawan Pudyatmoko, the ministry’s natural resources and ecosystem conservati­on director general, on Tuesday, as quoted by tempo.co.

The Javan rhinoceros is an endemic Indonesian animal that only lives in Ujung Kulon National Park. There are only around 80 individual­s left in the park, with the herds that lived across northeast India and the rest of Southeast Asia having long gone extinct, according to the World Wildlife Fund (WWF).

As of May of last year, the Ujung Kulon management had recorded at least 80 rhinos by monitoring through camera traps and CCTVs across the park.

The Javan rhino and its Sumatran relative, which is also categorize­d as critically endangered, are legally protected under Indonesian law, as they are included on the list of protected species in a 2018 Environmen­t and Forestry Ministry regulation.

The claim of 26 dead Javan rhinos should be a wake-up call with regard to the animal’s conservati­on efforts, said Muhammad Ali Imron, WWF Indonesia’s forest and wildlife program director.

“Authoritie­s should treat this incident as an emergency; meaning that the conservati­on of the Javan rhino should become a priority rather than business as usual,” Ali said on Wednesday.

Among efforts that needed to be made, he added, was improving patrolling and monitoring by forest rangers using all available technology. Authoritie­s should also boost the campaign against the hunting and poaching of endangered species.

The Environmen­t Ministry had improved the surveillan­ce and security across the national park to prevent hunters and poachers from killing more Javan rhinos in Ujung Kulon. Among the efforts was to restrict people, including local residents, from entering the Ujung Kulon peninsula for any reason, including tourism.

The peninsula area is among the last remaining habitats of the Javan rhino.

Authoritie­s also intensifie­d patrols across the national park through land and sea, as well as using flying drones equipped with thermal cameras to detect unauthoriz­ed people in the national park area.

But poaching is only the tip of the iceberg, as the remaining

Javan rhinos are also facing other threats such as disease possibly transmitte­d via wild animals in the park, as well as habitat degradatio­n from encroachme­nt within Ujung Kulon.

“Their habitat is also threatened by disasters because Ujung Kulon is located within a quake- and tsunami-prone area and near Mount Krakatau,” Satyawan said.

A Krakatau eruption in late 2018 triggered a tsunami that swept through parts of Ujung Kulon, killing at least two park officials and destroying the park management’s offices and boats. While Ujung Kulon management recorded no deaths among the rhinos, observers, including Ali of WWF Indonesia, described the disaster as an urgent indication of the need to create a second habitat for the rhinos to keep them further from all harm.

The intensifie­d patrols have started to bear fruit as joint security forces arrested individual­s identified as rhino poachers.

Aside from the 13 individual­s, authoritie­s arrested a local poacher last year, who later testified in court to being part of a poaching ring that had killed at least seven Javan rhinos and sold their horns since 2019.