Melvin Gumal

Sarawak Forestry Corporation · Conservation

Stripes and bands are common colour patterns in snakes. Some species are known to exhibit colour polymorphism and that includes expressing it in the bands and stripes. Bridal snake, Dryocalamus is a medium-sized arboreal snake in South to Southeast Asia and most species of the genus are banded, but including two striped species. In Borneo, banded D...

The tropical rainforest of Lambir Hills National Park, located in the northern part of Sarawak State of Malaysia on Borneo Island, is characterized by high diversity and a unique taxonomic composition of canopy plants, such as epiphytes, hemiepiphytes, and arboreal hemiparasites. However, the assessment of plant diversity among these plants is inco...

A newly discovered sandstone-dwelling species of the rock gecko, genus Cnemaspis, is described from Santubong National Park, 25 km north of Kuching, southwestern Sarawak, Malaysian Borneo. Molecular phylogenetic analysis confirmed that Cnemaspis puterisantubongae sp. nov. is closely related to other Cnemaspis species in southwestern Sarawak, except...

The Sri Lankan species, Bolitonaeus quadridentatus (Candèze, 1861) is redescribed. Two new species, Bolitonaeus dannyi sp. nov. and B. semiyangensis sp. nov., are described, which have been misidentified as B. quadridentatus since ando (2010).

The genus Macaranga (Euphorbiaceae) includes myrmecophytes that allow symbiotic ants to nest inside their hollow stems. The plant exhibits a mutualistic relationship with the ants by providing them with so-called “food bodies.” Such symbiotic ants, called “plant-ants,” patrol the surface of the host plants to repel herbivorous insects from the host...

as one of the presentations in a symposium S08 "How are the “aerial gardens" shaped in forests? ~ Past and future of epiphyte research in Asia~" under ESJ 71, Yokohama, Japan.

Tropical rainforests in Southeast Asia are globally recognized as biodiversity hotspots. However, floristic inventories are limited, particularly for hemiparasites growing in forest canopies. This study presents a checklist of showy mistletoe (Loranthaceae) from the Lambir Hills National Park located in the Miri district, Sarawak, northern Borneo,...

Predation of plantain squirrel by red-tailed green ratsnake

Ratsnake predation on plantain squirrel

In the first quarter of 2016, a qualitative survey of 451 Malaysians was conducted to examine their views of what their future environment would be in 2050. Of these, 172 (38.1%) responded to the focused surveys with 52.3% indicating that the future was negative and only 19.8% believing that the future would be positive. The surveys were conducted...

Nasalis larvatus, commonly known as the Proboscis monkey, is an endemic primate of the island of Borneo. They can be found in riverine forests, peat swamps, mangroves as well as mixed dipterocarp forests (Bennett and Sebastian, 1988; Meijaard and Nijman, 2000; Kombi and Abdullah, 2013; Chong et al., 2018; Laman and Aziz, 2019; Mazlan et al., 2019)....

• Many shark and ray (elasmobranch) species are threatened with extinction, due to overfishing and commercial trade • Sarawak is situated in Malaysian Borneo in the Coral Triangle: a global priority region for elasmobranch conservation. Malaysia is the world’s eighth largest elasmobranch fishing nation, and Sarawak is one of Malaysia’s largest fish...

The need for conservation scientists to produce research of greater relevance to practitioners is now increasingly recognized. This study provides an example of scientists working alongside practitioners and policy makers to address a question of immediate relevance to elephant conservation in Malaysia and using the results to inform wildlife manag...

The need for conservation scientists to produce research of greater relevance to practitioners is now increasingly recognized. This study provides an example of scientists working alongside practitioners and policy makers to address a question of immediate relevance to elephant conservation in Malaysia and using the results to inform wildlife manag...

The need for conservation scientists to produce research of greater relevance to practitioners is now increasingly recognized. This study provides an example of scientists working alongside practitioners and policy makers to address a question of immediate relevance to elephant conservation in Malaysia and using the results to inform wildlife manag...

Bearded pigs, predation of long-tiled macaque, Sarawak

Paper straws, plastic straws, eateries, consumers, acceptance rate, Kuching, Sarawak, Malaysia

The integration of Bayesian analysis into existing great ape survey methods could be used to generate precise and reliable population estimates of Bornean orang-utans. We used the Marked Nest Count (MNC) method to count new orang-utan nests at seven previously undocumented study sites in Sarawak, Malaysia. Our survey teams marked new nests on the f...

Sharks, rays, skates and volunteerism

Camera trap data was used to study occurrence and daily activity patterns in the Endau Rompin Landscape of peninsular Malaysia during 2011, 2013 and 2015 to estimate Malayan Tiger Panthera tigris jacksoni population densities. By-catch data were also collected for seven ungulate species: Barking Deer Muntiacus muntjak, Bearded Pig Sus barbatus, Wil...

Camera trap data was used to study occurrence and daily activity patterns in the Endau Rompin Landscape of peninsular Malaysia during 2011, 2013 and 2015 to estimate Malayan Tiger Panthera tigris jacksoni population densities. By-catch data were also collected for seven ungulate species: Barking Deer Muntiacus muntjak, Bearded Pig Sus barbatus, Wil...

This chapter sets the overall context by providing a brief overview of the historical and current status of wild tiger populations and social, cultural, and scientific perspectives on the tiger.

Nature Communications 6: Article number:6819 (2015); Published 14 April 2015; Updated 14 June 2016 The original version of this Article contained an error in the spelling of the author Hugh P. Possingham, which was incorrectly given as Hugh P. Posssingham. This has now been corrected in both the PDFand HTML versions of the Article.

Balancing economic development with international commitments to protect biodiversity is a global challenge. Achieving this balance requires an understanding of the possible consequences of alternative future scenarios for a range of stakeholders. We employ an integrated economic and environmental planning approach to evaluate four alternative futu...

Much attention has been focused on the orangutans in Sarawak since the 1800s. The science in the early days consisted of killing these animals for taxidermy purposes such as life-size exhibits, skulls and skins for education at museums, and live exhibits at zoos. By the 1960s, due to the continued loss of wild animals to the pet trade and poaching...

In Peninsular Malaysia, the sambar has lost more than 50% of its historical range in the past century and only a quarter of its current habitat is protected. Although multiple hunting moratoria have existed for five decades, the sambar has been relentlessly poached for local meat consumption. It now persists in only a few areas that receive active...

10 original contribution melVIN Gumal 1* , abu baKar bIN moHamed SalleH 2 , moHd NaWayaI yaSaK 3 , lIaNG SoNG HorNG 1 , beNJamIN P. y-H. lee 4,5 , loW CHee PHeNG 1 , HaSNIzam HamzaH 2 , daNIel KoNG 1 , daVId maGINTaN 3 , deNNIS TeN CHooN yuNG 3 , aHmad zulFI bIN zalaluddIN 1 , azIma bINTI azmI 1 , NorHIdayaTI bINTI KHalId 1 , THaI PoH yeN 1 , VooN...

Six species of wild cats were camera-trapped in the Johor Endau-Rompin Landscape which comprises both a national park and Permanent Reserved Forests (PRF). The camera-trapped species were tiger Panthera tigris, leopard Panthera pardus, mainland clouded leopard Neofelis nebulosa, Asiatic golden cat Catopuma temminckii, leopard cat Prionailurus benga...

Tiger Panthera tigris populations are under threat from poaching and depletion of their prey populations. The National Tiger Action Plan for Malaysia contains several actions addressing the threat of legal and illegal hunting of tiger prey species. One action in this plan required an investigation of whether urgent policy changes were needed to imp...

The loss and fragmentation of substantial areas of forest habitat, in combination with rampant hunting, has pushed many of Southeast Asia’s megafauna species to the verge of extinction. However, the extent of these declines is rarely quantified, thereby weakening lessons learned and species-based management. This need not be the case as a prolifera...

Cumulative impacts of forest fragmentation resulting from the construction of linear infrastructures and land-use practices not compatible with wildlife conservation pose the main long-term threats to tiger habitat in Malaysia. While habitat protection is essential for the long-term survival of the tiger, illegal trade is a more urgent threat, havi...

Definition of source sites. (0.08 MB DOC)

Estimating financial costs for effective protection and monitoring at source sites, and present expenditures. (0.06 MB DOC)

Source sites listed by country. (0.07 MB XLS)

Sarawak, Borneo, faces high levels of deforestation: logging, oil palm plantations, hunting and shifting cultivation pose major threats to its diverse fauna. Very little credible, accurate and up-to-date information exists regarding the small carnivores of Sarawak, even though many are considered threatened by the IUCN Red List. The first 54 months...

Knowledge of the density and distribution of the endangered orangutan is essential both for their conservation and to identify ecological factors that limit their population size. The authors of this chapter collated orangutan density estimates from 110 locations throughout their range, standardized these for differences in survey design and catego...

In recognition of the fact that orang-utans (Pongo spp.) are severely threatened, a meeting of orang-utan experts and conservationists, representatives of national and regional governmental and non-governmental organizations, and other stakeholders, was convened in Jakarta, Indonesia, in January 2004. Prior to this meeting we surveyed all large are...

Introduction Considerable research has been conducted on the causes of wildlife decline in the Malaysian State of Sarawak on the island of Borneo (e.g. Dewan Undangan Negeri 1985; Caldecott 1988; Bennett 1992; Meredith 1993; Bennett & Dahaban 1995; Dahaban 1996; Bennett et al. 2000). These studies documented the decline of many species, and the imp...

Field data on the roosting ecology of a maternity colony of Pteropus vampyrus natunae in a peat swamp forest in Sarawak were collected for 19 mo. The colony moved between 10 roost sites and the diurnal home range (comprising only day-roost sites) was about 1120 ha. Two movement phases were observed within the diurnal home range. The first phase con...