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Mysterious pygmy elephants being tracked across Borneo by WWF World Wildlife Fund December 16, 2005 The same satellite system used by the U.S. military to track vehicle convoys in Iraq is helping World Wildlife Fund shed light on the little-known world of pygmy elephants in Borneo. "No one has ever studied pygmy elephants before, so everything we're learning is groundbreaking data," said Dr. Christy Williams, who leads WWF's Asian elephant conservation efforts and worked with experts to use commercial satellite technology to track Asian elephants for the first time. "We will be following these elephants for several years by satellite to identify their home ranges and working with the Malaysian government to conserve the most critical areas." Five elephants have been collared by WWF and the Sabah, Malaysia, Wildlife Department, with support from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Among the preliminary findings from the study: "The elephants' movements are noticeably affected by human activity. Elephants living in areas with the most human disturbance, such as logging and commercial agriculture, spend more time on the move than elephants in more remote areas. One of the collared elephants living near human activity, dubbed Bod Tai, covered a third more ground than did Nancy, who lives in more remote jungle.
The Sabah Wildlife Department described the study as very important and the results could be used to assist the department in preparing Sabah's elephant conservation plan. The pygmy elephants were determined by WWF in 2003 to be a likely new subspecies of Asian elephant but very little is known about them, including how many there are. Pygmy elephants are smaller, chubbier and more gentle-natured than other Asian elephants. They are found only on the northeast tip of Borneo, mainly in the Malaysian state of Sabah. "We are learning about more than just elephants with this project," said Raymond Alfred, project manager of the elephant tracking project in Sabah. "Elephants are a 'keystone species' and habitat engineers whose impact shapes the forest in important ways for the many other species with whom they share their habitat." This is a modified news release from WWF.
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