GPS satellite helping scientists track endangered Asian elephants
Developers and poachers know no limits when it comes to the Asian elephant. This gargantuan mammal has been losing ground in its fight to survive. Not only is this creature prized for its tusks, but it has lost its natural habitat as new settlements, roads and crops increasingly pop up. Making things even worse is the fact that this elephant has been listed as endangered by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) since 1986. A team of British and Malaysian researchers is currently tracking some of the remaining elephants roaming the Asian state to evaluate the effectiveness of the Malaysian government's elephant conservation and management practices. Researchers from the University of Nottingham Malaysia Campus (UNMC) and the Malaysian Department of Wildlife and National Parks are using latest global positioning system (GPS) and satellite communication technology in their study. Thousands of wild elephants lived on the Malay Peninsular 100 years ago. Their current number is below 1,500. And since the 20th century, around half of the forest cover in Peninsular Malaysia has been lost. The Malaysian Ministry of Natural Resources has forged ties with the UNMC and 10 other universities in the country to get the five-year 'Management & Ecology of Malaysian Elephants' (MEME) research project off the ground and running. Dr Ahimsa Campos-Arceiz from the School of Geography at UNMC, who heads up the project, said: 'If we lose the elephants we lose a unique element of tropical ecosystems. When elephants walk they trample the soil and impact the forest in a way that no other animal does. When elephants eat, they modify the structure of vegetation, releasing plant parts that can be consumed by other herbivores. When elephants eat fruits, they disperse seeds. Ultimately, elephants create habitat heterogeneity and promote forest regeneration. All this will be lost and we will have a much more simplified ecosystem that is less resilient and has lost a lot of its diversity.' The team expects to generate information on the movement of elephants in their natural habitats and how they react to translocation, which is a method used to move elephants away from areas of human-elephant conflict (HEC). According to the researchers, they are also assessing non-invasive techniques to extract deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) and hormones from the mammals' faeces. This information could be used to develop efficient strategies to ease conflict between Man and elephant, and provide insight into the animals' ecological function in tropical rainforests. A conservation strategy based on the information obtained by the researchers will be developed. A total of 50 elephants are fitted with GPS-satellite tracking devices. The plan is for the researchers to keep an eye on the elephants' reactions to changes in their habitat and to translocation. The GPS collar is helping the team track the animals in the field using very high frequency (VHF) radio signal or at any location with an Internet connection. Support for this project also comes from Denmark, Singapore and the United States.For more information, please visit:University of Nottingham:http://www.nottingham.ac.uk/Malaysian Department of Wildlife and National Parks:http://www.wildlife.gov.my/
Countries
Malaysia, United Kingdom