Malaysia's 'Elephant Whisperer' Fights to Save Borneo's Endangered Giants
The team fitted a tracking collar and took blood samples to alert villagers when elephants stray near homes and farms.
- In Sukau, Malaysia, conservationist Farina Othman and her team of 17 attached a GPS tracking collar to a wild Bornean elephant named Pigtail to monitor movements and alert villagers of potential encounters.
- Over the past 40 years, Bornean elephants have lost more than 60 percent of their habitat in Sabah to logging and oil palm expansion, according to the International Union for Conservation of Nature, which listed the species as endangered in 2024.
- "Conflict is inevitable" when animals enter private property, Farina said, citing a recent incident where 20 elephants stomped into palm oil smallholdings and three villages, terrifying residents, though no one was injured.
- Farina's group, Seratu Aatai, trains "community wildlife guardians" to usher elephants away, shifting local language from "chase away" to "escorting," which homestay owner Firah Kazenn said helps residents manage living near the animals safely.
- Farina is designing "elephant corridors"—pathways through plantations connecting habitat patches—to increase connectivity space for the species while finding a long-term solution that avoids harming the animals.
12 Articles
12 Articles
Malaysia’s ‘elephant whisperer’ leads push to save Sabah’s endangered Bornean elephants
SUKAU, Sept 21 — Deep in Malaysia’s Borneo jungle, wild shouts fill the air as a Bornean elephant is darted and her angry herd rallies to protect her.The downed elephant is one...
In the heart of the Borneo jungle in Malaysia, wild screams echo in the air when a Borneo elephant is struck by a tranquilizing dart and its enraged herd unites to protect it. The fallen elephant is one of about 1,000 remaining Borneo elephants in nature, and the team that sewed it is working to protect the threatened species from extinction, minimizing the growing conflict between animals and local communities.
Malaysia's 'elephant whisperer' fights to save Borneo's endangered giants
The downed elephant is one of only around 1,000 Bornean elephants left in the wild, and the team that darted her is working to protect the endangered species by minimising growing conflict between the animals and local communities. Once the herd has been chased off, conservationist Farina Othman and her team move in to attach a tracking collar to the animal. The collar allows them to alert villagers if the elephant strays too near. #photo1 It i…
Malaysia’s ‘elephant whisperer’ leads push to save Sabah’s endangered Bornean elephants - Malaysia now
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