Abstract
Widespread and unregulated hunting of ungulates in Southeast Asia is resulting in population declines and localised extinctions. Increased access to previously remote tropical forest following logging and changes in land-use facilitates hunting of elusive wild cattle in Borneo, which preferentially select secluded habitat. We collated the first population parameters for the Endangered Bornean banteng Bos javanicus lowi and developed population models to simulate the effect of different hunting offtake rates on survival and the recovery of the population using reintroduced captive-bred individuals. Our findings suggest that the banteng population in Sabah is geographically divided into 4 management units based on connectivity: the Northeast, Sipitang (West), Central and Southeast, which all require active management to prevent further population decline and local extinction. With only 1% offtake, population growth ceased in the Northeast and Sipitang. In the Southeast and Central units, growth ceased at 2 and 4% offtake, respectively. Extinction was estimated at 21-39 yr when offtake was 5%, occurring first in Sipitang and last in the Central unit. Supplementing the population with captive-bred individuals suggested that inbreeding was likely to limit population growth if using ≤20 founder individuals. Translocating 2 individuals for a 10 yr period, starting after 20 yr of captive breeding resulted in a faster population recovery over 100 yr and a lower extinction probability. Our results suggest that shielding the population against further losses from hunting will be key to their survival in the wild, provided that active management in the form of captive breeding is developed in the interim.
Highlights
Unsustainable hunting of wild animals for human consumption is an acute problem in Southeast Asia, where the impacts are exacerbated by globally unmatched rates of deforestation (Dobson et al 2019)
We excluded intensive tree plantations (ITPs) from carrying capacity estimates given the importance of natural forest cover, primarily tropical lowland dipterocarp forest, as key banteng habitat in Sabah, which was modelled by Lim et al (2021)
Our study provides the first extensive compilation of biological parameters from multiple sources for the banteng, and is the first example of the PHVA approach applied to the Bornean banteng to model population projections in Sabah, and for the banteng per se in any country
Summary
Unsustainable hunting of wild animals for human consumption is an acute problem in Southeast Asia, where the impacts are exacerbated by globally unmatched rates of deforestation (Dobson et al 2019). Differences in motiva- currently estimated at 326 individuals (Sabah Wildtion for hunting are known to exist, and the general life Department 2019). Evidence of banteng geting wild cattle appear to vary, ranging from sub- poaching is challenging to obtain; it is seldom resistence hunting by locals and forest contractors for ported to the authorities, and the majority of incipersonal consumption, gifting of whole carcasses for dences surface primarily via social media (Fig. 1) and celebrations and festivals, sport hunting, and acquir- are occasionally covered by local newspapers (Sario ing trophies for personal status or trade for medicinal 2015, Sarda 2016). Bor- over recent years, but the majority remain undocunean banteng graze on crop plants in the grasslands of East Kalimantan (Indonesian Borneo) and are perceived as a pest species and hunted (Hedges & Meijaard 1999)
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