Description

ABSTRACT

Kawang Forest Reserve (KFR) is gazetted as Class I Protection Forest Reserve and serves as a recreation forest and water catchment area at Papar. KFR is a 1551 ha of disturbed mixed lowland dipterocarp forest and both the pristine and secondary-regrowth forest can be found within it. The information of wildlife community at KFR remains scarce for now, therefore a research study is carried out in Kawang Forest Reserve, Papar, Sabah to determine the mammal wildlife species especially sambar deer, Cervus unicolor. The study is about the sighting rate of sambar deer, Cervus unicolor. at different forest types. The camera traps will be set up and used salt licks to attract sambar deer. It will be set up at 12 different stations for 2 months of duration with GPS coordination for location tracking purpose. The stations will be visited once every two weeks to collect the data and check the camera batteries. Camera trapping method is the faster way to get mammals biodiversity and their sampling pictures as well. The image from camera trapping can help in raising awareness and promote local and global interest and investment in Sambar deer conservation. The study showed that the sambar deer visit salt licks actively during wet season and even at night.  The information from the research are used for understanding the current conditions of the wildlife community. It is also can used for promoting them as tourist attraction of the KFR.

INTRODUTION

Kawang Forest Reserve (KFR) is presently gazetted as a Class I Protection Forest Reserve, in which it serves as a water catchment area (annual precipitation = 2500 mm – 3000 mm), and also as a recreation forest at Kawang, Papar. KFR is comprised of 1,551 ha of disturbed mixed lowland dipterocarp forest, such as Hopea beccariana, Drybalanops lanceolata, Parashorea sp., and Shorea fallax) and Eusideroxylon malagangai. and then both the pristine and secondary-regrowth forests can be found within this reserve which mainly comprised of pioneer species like the Commersonia incana, Alphitonia incana, Alstonia spathulata, and Ficus sp. that can adapt and survive at the disturbed environment. Then, its altitude ranges from 81 m to 658 m above sea level (a.s.l), with “Castle Peak” as the highest peak (658 m a.s.l) here in KFR. Due to the hilly topography, ridges, slopes and valleys, and various streams and rivers, are presented throughout this reserve. A topographic map of KFR, made from a digital elevation model (DEM) using GIS, is displayed as shown in Figure 1.

          To determine the species of wildlife that can be found in Kawang Forest Reserve, Sabah Forestry Department have been collaborating with researchers from Universiti Malaysia Sabah. The information from the research will be used to understand the current condition of the wildlife community, besides, it also used to promote them for tourist attractions of this forest reserve. The objective of this research study is to determine the sighting rate of Sambar Deer in different types of forest of Kawang Forest Reserve.

Understanding the distribution and habitat of wildlife species is the key topic in ecology and important for their conservation (Guisan et al. 2013). A variety of approaches and methods have been developed to generate potential explanatory variables for species models. In this study, we are required to do a concept brief for the research study on wildlife community at this reserved. We have chosen the method of camera trapping as our sampling method, and the order of animal that we have chosen are the Sambar deer. For this research study, it will take up about 2 months of timeframe for the sampling method.

The idea of choosing the camera trapping method is because of it is quite famous in world of wildlife and it is easier and a faster way to get the sampling animal pictures especially for the rapid assessment of mammalia biodiversity. Furthermore, camera trapping can provide economic data regarding this animals’ abundance, occupancy, distribution, population dynamics, and even resource selection. In addition, camera trapping photographs can help in raising awareness and promote local and global interest and investment in Sambar deer conservation. Camera trapping method also does not disturb the species and it the data recorded has high accuracy meaning that it is suitable for us using this method in reserved forest.

LITERATURE REVIEW

Globally, there is a lot of interest in deer farming. Thus, to protect this animal from being decrease in number of their species, there are a few researches on maintaining and increase the Sambar deer’s population. Nowadays, most deer species presently being farmed and protected are including the red deer (Cervus elaphus), fallow deer (Dama dama), wapiti (Cervus elaphus) and so on. The further extensive studies that had been conducted in the tropical species that focus on with the Rusa deer (Cervus timorensis) and Sambar deer (Cervus unicolor), (van Mourik 1985; Chardonnet 1988). The establishment of a small semi-domesticated sambar deer in Southeast Asia has been provided the opportunity to observes both biology, behaviour and record the data of this species. In this research, our group had been choosing the Sambar deer (Cervus unicolor) as our target species. This research was conducted by our team in targeted area in Kawang Forest Reserve where this place is protected area. From that we know this area was established to protect the wildlife species including the Sambar deer.

Image 1: A female Sambar deer (Cervus unicolor).

Sambar deer (Cervus unicolor) is identified from the order of Artiodactyla. This species majorly was found in the rainforest in Southeast Asia. According to the book of “Anthropogenic Tropical Forests: Human–Nature Interfaces on the Plantation”, the adults of Bornean sambar deer weighs about around 100 kg and has a length (head-and-body) about 154−204 cm. In addition, the size of mature males is larger compare to the females of sambar deer (Payne et al. 1998; Meijaard et al. 2005). The birth and mating season of sambar deer has been reported will be on the wet season (Mishra, 1982; Mishra and Wemmer, 1987; Geist, 1998).