Borneo Pygmy Elephants Native to Sabah Declared Endangered, Less Than 1,000 Remain in the Wild

Recently, we shared how our national animal, the Harimau Malaya is critically endangered, with only less than 150 left in our country.

Now, we’ve gotten another distressing news about another majestic wildlife that calls Malaysia its home. This is after the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) in a statement yesterday (27 June) declared the Borneo Pygmy Elephant, which is native to Sabah, as Endangered.

Borneo Elephants declared Endangered by IUCN

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The statement gives an update to the IUCN Red List, which assesses animal species’ risk of extinction, saying that the list now includes 163,040 species, of which 45,321 are threatened with extinction.

IUCN further elaborated that the Borneo Elephant is now classified as Endangered, following its 1st assessment as a distinct subspecies on the ICUN Red List that found there are only an estimated 1,000 of them left in the wild.

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It further noted that the population of the Borneo Elephant has diminished over the past 75 years, initially due to extensive logging of Borneo’s forests destroying the majority of the Borneo Elephants’ habitat.

The statement added that as the human population has rapidly expanded in Sabah, elephants are entering human-dominated landscapes more often in search of food, where they may cause damage to crops and face retribution killing.

Further habitat loss from agriculture, especially palm oil, timber plantations, mining, and major infrastructure projects such as the Pan Borneo Highway threaten the future of Bornean elephants.

Poaching for ivory, accidental ingestion of agrochemicals, and vehicle collisions are also concerns.

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So, what do you guys think of IUCN’s statement and its classification of Borneo Elephants as Endangered? Share your thoughts with us in the comments!

Also read: There are Less Than 150 Harimau Malaya Tigers Left in Malaysia, Confirms Natural Resources Ministry