From: Indonesia Publications/Task Force <apakabar>
Subject: Rhinos Defend Forest Homes
Source: Reuter.
Date: 28 Oct 91.
Story Type: News.
Original Language: English.
Dateline: Ujung Kulon.
Byline: Jonathan Thatcher.
Text: Abridged.
Brief Remark: Forwarded.
RARE INDONESIAN RHINOS DEFEND FOREST HOME
By Jonathan Thatcher
UJUNG KULON, Indonesia, Oct 28, Reuter - In the jungle-clad western
tip of Java hide the rarest of rhinoseroses, reputed source of Marco
Polo's unicorn and survivors of one of the biggest explosions in
history.
The one-horned Javan rhino, which once wallowed in mud from
Bangladesh to Indonesia, is the closest of all rhinos to disappearing.
Only two, maybe three, of its jungle homes are left.
A handful live in Vietnam and footprints of the wrinkly,
leather-skinned animal were found this year in south Sumatra.
Most of the 70 or so thought to remain live in the rich, lowland
forests and glinting white beaches of Ujung Kulong.
The reserve is one of the most important in Indonesia, a huge
tropical archipelago that is home to one of the world's richest
collections of plants, animals and insects.
"On the beach you see more rhino footprints than humans'," shouted
former geologist, Mike Griffiths, over the roar of waves pounding into
the southern cliffs edging the reserve that man and nature have defended
from the rest of the thickly populated island of Java.
Griffiths, a field officer with the Worldwide Fund for Nature (WWF),
and his team have sliced their way through the jungle to plant 40
cameras with flash-guns around the reserve. They photograph anything
weighing more than 15 kg (33 lbs) that steps on a nearby pressure pad.
Griffiths defends the high cost of this technique he developed,
saying it is the surest and quickest way to find out just how many
rhinos there are.
The alternatives are counting footprints and droppings or just
waiting for one to come by.
He estimates it would take four years to do the same work by taking
casts of the feet -- it is the middle toe of the hind foot that really
sets the rhinos apart.
On a recent visit the only rhino trace was a splash of dried mud one
had left on a tree some weeks earlier when it squeezed through the dense
forest of palms, towering strangling figs and other trees and jungle
creepers.
The rare animals, reputedly mistaken for the mythical unicorn by
Marco Polo on his travels 700 years ago, have a reputation for being
fierce.
Team members grin as the New Zealand environmentalist relates how
one member recently leapt into the jungle's thorniest tree -- the snake
fruit -- to escape the plough-like charge of a large Javan rhino.
"I've never seen such fear."
Ujung Kulon's great attraction for rhinos, apart from being the sort
of lowland forest they like, is that the government makes sure nobody
lives in the 30,000 hectare (74,000 acre) park.
The initial deterrent came about a century ago when nearby Krakatau
mountain blew to pieces in the biggest volcanic explosion in recorded
history.
The bang -- 30 times the size of the biggest H-bomb explosion --
triggered a huge tidal wave that swept through the area, killing more
than 36,000 people.
By the time rice farmers started to filter back earlier this
century, the then-Dutch colonial government had already decided to turn
the blob of land, connected by a thin isthmus to the rest of Java, into
a reserve. They used tales of tigers and malaria to scare off would-be
residents.
The tigers have long gone, but the forests bustle with other
wildlife.
About half of the birds of Java can be found in the park, among them
bright green peacocks that strut along the forest floor, hornbills, with
their distinctive bright bills, eagles and jungle fowl -- ancestor to
the ubiquitous village chicken.
It is home too to a variety of animals, as one student recently
discovered to his cost when a crocodile grabbed him earlier this year.
There are leopards -- October is the mating season and their
droppings litter one forest path -- wild cattle, snakes, monkeys and the
hairy-nosed otter that Griffiths said might be even rarer than the
rhino.
So why the fuss over the rhino, without which the forest could quite
well survive. Why not, for example, the termite that is probably more
important to the local ecosystem?
"If you save the rhino you save everything else in the park,"
Griffiths said, explaining that the rhino is a flagship species and has
a catchier name than the rare otter.
The rhino is being taken as the mascot to provide the focus the
Indonesian government needs to protect the reserve.
The animal is the centre of a debate over whether to protect it in
its natural habitat or haul it off to zoos to try captive breeding.
Defenders of "in situ" conservation say the park is well protected
and zoos have no proven track record for breeding rhinos -- who can be
choosy about their mates.
It would need about half the estimated rhino population to even try
to breed them in captivity. Then the offspring must be taken back to the
wild.
"I think you'd have a hell of a problem introducing rhinos back into
Ujung Kulon," said Griffiths, who has been stalking the Javan rhino's
smaller Sumatran cousin for years.
"If you're born and bred in the rain forest you'd be fairly hardened
and smartened to it by the time you're an adult, but if you introduce a
zoo-bred animal it's like sending innocents to the slaughter-house."
Charles Santiapillai, senior scientific officer with the WWF, said
the answer may be to introduce the rhino into similar reserves in
Indonesia.
"What's the point of taking the rhino to Cincinnati zoo?" he said.
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