The female pygmy elephant was found dead on a plantation just outside a forest reserve in the Kinabatangan area of Sabah. The adult jumbo, which was around 10 years old, was riddled with wounds from shotgun pellets. She might have taken days to die of her wounds in great agony….

If you thought Sabah’s infamous bushmeat culture couldn’t get any worse, think again. The Bornean state, famed for its renowned biodiversity, has long been a hotspot of “exotic” dishes made from the meat of endangered wild animals. The practice is against the law, but there’s been a thriving well-documented black…

First, Aaron “Bertie” Gekoski, an award-winning wildlife photographer and television presenter, introduced us to the heroic men and women who are helping save Sabah’s endangered wildlife. He did so in a series of short online documentariesJoin called “Borneo Wildlife Warriors” with stunning camerawork and revealing interviews. Now the intrepid conservationist has…

In order to save endangered animals across Malaysia, we need action. And in order for that action to work, it needs to be planned comprehensively. That’s why it’s a welcome development that a group of scientists, conservationists and officials came together in Sabah to work out a new action plan for…

To her keepers, Puntung, one of Malaysia’s last three Sumatran rhinos, was a precious animal beloved for her gentle nature. To animal lovers across the country and farther afield, she was no less precious: she was one of her species’ very last Mohicans in Malaysia. Her loss has dealt a…

First the news was bad: Puntung, one of Malaysia’s last three Sumatran rhinos, was gravelly ill. Then came better news: after undergoing life-saving surgery, she managed to pull through. Her recovery delighted animal lovers and conservationists alike. Sadly, here now comes yet more bad news: Puntung has terminal cancer. According…

Even in Sabah’s biodiverse forests with their cornucopia of exotic animals, proboscis monkeys are stand-outs. The reddish-brown primates are famous for their flamboyant looks, thanks largely to their large and elongated nozzles. They use those mighty sniffers to amplify the sound of their calls through the canopies of forests they call…

As often, science can come to the rescue. This time for determining whether pygmy elephant tusks seized a few days ago in North Kalimantan, Indonesia, belonged to two male pachyderms that were recently killed in Sabah. Indonesian officials stopped a woman who was carrying five elephant tusks in Nunukan in North Kalimantan last week, and Malaysian officials…

They’re a persistent lot, are they not? Wildlife traffickers, that is. Malaysian authorities have been stepping up their efforts to clamp down on international smuggling networks that use the country as a regional transit point for the trafficking of ivory from Africa. That, though, has clearly not deterred ivory-smuggling syndicates. And so 2017 has started pretty…

To cull them or not to cull them –  that remains the question in Sabah, regarding the state’s unruly population of saltwater crocodiles. The reptiles have been protected from being killed by law, but as a result their numbers have increased to such levels that local people living beside croc-infested waters have asked…

Another day, another development involving one of Malaysia’s perennially beleaguered sun bears. Thankfully, though, this one was a welcome one. Wildlife Department officials in Sabah captured a one-year-old runaway sun bear cub that escaped from her owner in Kg Pangkalan Abai. The young bear, a female, is now safe and…

Many locals in Sabah seem to view the state’s forests as their own backyards: the animals that inhabit those woods, these people apparently believe, are simply there for the taking – through the barrels of hunting rifles. Reportedly, the bushmeat trade in the state continues to flourish despite a ban…

Malaysia’s endangered orangutans need all the help they can get. Yet in the unending struggle to save these highly intelligent and unique apes from extinction in the country’s forests, at least some of them need a little less help than they once did. That is according to Dr Sen Nathan, assistant…