Hornbill Natural History and Conservation Hornbill Specialist Group | July 2021 Volume 2, Number 1
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IUCN HSG ISSN : 2708-8979 Hornbill Natural History and Conservation Hornbill Specialist Group | July 2021 Volume 2, Number 1 2, Number Volume I IUCN HSG The IUCN SSC HSG is hosted by: Co-chairs: Aparajita Datta and Lucy Kemp Hornbill Natural History and Conservation (HNHC) Editorial Board Tim O’Brien, Kenya T R Shankar Raman, India Jarryd Alexander, South Africa Divya Mudappa, India HNHC Design Janhavi Rajan, Nature Conservation Foundation, India Cover Photograph Rhinoceros Hornbill. © Shavez Cheema II IUCN HSG CONTENTS EDITORIAL 1 RESEARCH ARTICLES Observations of Hornbills in Tawau Hills Park, Sabah, Malaysia Qian-Qun Koid, Shavez Cheema, Chun-Xing Wong, Fred Tuh Yit Yu, Rimi 3 Repin and John Payne Observations of nesting strategies of three African hornbill species 14 Margaretha C. Stander, Tanja M. F. N. Van de Ven and Derek Engelbrecht NOTES FROM THE FIELD CCTV monitoring system: a novel approach in hornbill research and 24 conservation Xi Zheng, Ding-Cang Zhang, Qiang-Bang Gong and Bosco Pui Lok Chan Plant4Tawau: hornbill conservation by the replanting of Ficus in forest 28 tracts of Tawau, South East Sabah Martin Parry and Shavez Cheema Observations of Oriental Pied Hornbills Anthracoceros albirostris 38 investigating holes in karst limestone walls in Ipoh, Perak, Malaysia Donna Mae Baylis and W. K. Fletcher First Release of Visayan Tarictic Hornbill Penelopides panini at the 42 Danapa Nature Reserve, Negros Oriental, Philippines Matt Ward, Guillermo McPherson and Justine Magbanua Crowned Hornbills — the inside story 46 Hugh Chittenden HORNBILL NEWS 8th International Hornbill Conference 57 III IUCN HSG Dear HSG members, Wow! What a year it has been. As Volume 1(2) was being released and we were advertising for contributions to Volume 2, who could have imagined what lay ahead. To date, Covid-19 has infected more than 160 million people worldwide and resulted in more than 3.3 million deaths. For HSG field biolo- gists and zoo staff, the impact of steps taken to limit the spread of Covid-19, including lockdowns, stay at home orders, curfews, and social distancing, has been huge. Most of us had to suspend field programs, often resulting in loss of jobs for HSG members and local staff. Zoos and conservancies closed, los- ing fortunes. And, most of us have been touched by the deaths of family, friends and colleagues. The COVID-19 pandemic has changed the world. We are now more aware than ever of the risks we impose upon ourselves due to the current unsus- tainable ways in which we manage and use nature. As we have experienced over the course of the COVID-19 pandemic, these risks are not just related to our health, but also have deep repercussions for global economies, local livelihoods and society in general. Much has been written about the rise of pathogens - especially in regard to rapidly changing environments. Global warming, deforestation and habitat fragmentation have intensified proximity and rate of interaction between humans, their livestock and nature, increasing exposure risk. Legal international wildlife trade has risen 400% since 2005, and illegal and unregulated trade have also increased over time. Consump- tion of wildlife, especially birds and mammals, is believed to pose a great risk of disease emergence. The rise of emerging diseases of zoonotic origin has understandably caused widespread concern and underscores the need to prevent future spillovers and potential pandemics. Wildlife trade bans and closing of all markets sell- ing live wildlife have been proposed, but such approaches are considered impractical by many and would not solve the problem. Domestic animals, for example, account for 96% of mammalian biomass on Earth and the vast ma- jority of meat traded and consumed is from domestic rather than wild animals. When considering these differences in scale of production and consumption, the risk of contracting a food-borne illness from domestic animals in trade has been estimated to be ~3,000 times greater than from wild animals in trade. However, it should be noted that wildlife health is not monitored and man- 1 IUCN HSG aged with the same diligence as domestic animal health, which is very uneven globally. While not all emerging infectious disease events have occurred within the context of the wildlife trade, SARS, Ebola, and monkeypox, are examples of spillover events with their origins most probably - although not conclusive- ly - linked to wildlife consumption, wildlife farms, and/or markets selling live wildlife. The SARS Cov-2 virus that causes the COVID-19 disease is suspected to have originated in horseshoe bats and entered humans via an intermediary animal associated with the wildlife trade. However, no intermediary, wild or domestic, has been unambiguously identified so we still have significant gaps in our knowledge as to exactly how and when these diseases emerge. What we do know for certain is that one spillover is one too many. Every pandemic begins with a single infection event and while infection events may occur frequently around the world, most infections are unable to spread. In the unlikely event that an infection spreads into an urban human community (coupled with airborne transmission), pandemics can result. As Andy Dob- son and colleagues (including HSG member Margaret Kinnaird) point out, the costs of preventing a pandemic can be measured in hundreds of billions of dollars while the economic and social costs of dealing with a pandemic (e.g. Covid-19) are measured in tens of trillions of dollars. If prevention is the best medicine, then we clearly need to change our relationship with nature, and wildlife, if we hope to head off the next pandemic. Stay well and stay safe. ~Tim O’Brien and Margaret Kinnaird 2 IUCN HSG Observations of Hornbills in Tawau Hills Park, Sabah, Malaysia Qian-Qun Koid1*, Shavez Cheema1, Chun-Xing Wong1, Fred Tuh Yit Yu2, Rimi Repin2 and John Payne3 1 1StopBorneo Wildlife, 88400, Kota Kinabalu, Malaysia. 2 Sabah Parks, Block H, Level 1-5, Lot 45 & 46, KK Times Square, Coastal Highway, 88100, Kota Kinabalu, Malaysia. 3 Borneo Rhino Alliance Berhad, 88400, Kota Kinabalu, Malaysia. *Corresponding author email: [email protected] Abstract Introduction Hornbills (Family: Bucerotidae) are one of the icon- Hornbills are classified under the Order Bucero- ic animal groups in Borneo, forest-dependent and tiformes and Family Bucerotidae. They belong playing a significant role in the tropical rainforest to a group of bird species that are characterized ecosystem. Here, we aim to explore the hornbill by their distinctive long, large down-curved and species present in the rainforests of Tawau Hills Park pointed beak, commonly called the “bill”. Some (THP), Sabah. We performed two months of field possess a casque located on the upper mandi- survey using existing trails as survey transects. De- ble of the bill, which is coated with a thin keratin tected hornbills were identified and recorded. We sheath known as rhamphotheca. The function of recorded all eight Bornean hornbill species. THP the casque is debated (Kemp, 1969; Alexander together with the adjoining Ulu Kalumpang Forest et al., 1994), and there may be more than one, Reserve to the north provide nearly 800 square ki- including: in aerial jousting contests (Kinnaird lometers of forest habitat, representing an import- et al., 2003); to provide acoustic resonance and ant hornbill conservation area. Of the eight spe- enhance the distinctive call of some species (Al- cies, three are classified as Critically Endangered exander et al., 1994); and to reinforce the upper or Endangered in the IUCN Red List. We sighted mandible, enhancing the maximum force at the White-crowned Hornbills Aceros comatus and Black tip of the bill (Naish, 2015). There are 62 species Hornbills Anthracoceros malayanus frequently flying of hornbills in the Old World, occurring across into the oil palm plantation to the south to feed on tropical Africa, Asia, Australasia (Poonswad et oil palm fruits. Finally, we note the need to identify al., 2013). and restore wildlife corridors in the plantation-forest landscapes of Borneo. Borneo, the third-largest island in the world, is home to eight species of hornbills: White- crowned Hornbill (Berenicornis comatus), Wrin- Keywords: Bucerotidae, dipterocarp forest, seed kled Hornbill (Rhabdotorrhinus corrugatus), disperser, Borneo Bushy-crested Hornbill (Anorrhinus galeritus), Oriental Pied Hornbill (Anthracoceros albi- rostris), Black Hornbill, Rhinoceros Hornbill 3 Vol. 2(1): 3–13, 2021 IUCN HSG Hornbill Nat. Hist. & Conserv. (Buceros rhinoceros), Helmeted Hornbill (Rhinoplax Methods vigil), and Wreathed Hornbill (Rhyticeros undula- tus) (Bennett et al., 1997; Phillipps and Phillipps, Study Site 2016; Yeap and Perumal, 2017). Recent research Tawau Hills Park (4°22’33 N, 117°59’02 E) is a Pro- on hornbills includes their taxonomy (Fitriana et al., tected Area of mainly old-growth tropical rainfor- 2020), natural history and ecology (Kitamura, 2011; est legislated before the concept of biological Rahayuningsih et al., 2017), distribution (Mohd- diversity conservation was prominent in Sabah, Azlan et al., 2016), traditional ecological knowl- in 1979, to protect catchments for the supply of edge (Franco and Minggu, 2019), as well as their water to Tawau town and the Semporna Peninsu- responses towards human disturbance and conser- la located in south-eastern Sabah, Malaysia (Fig. vation effort (Beastall et al., 2016; Yeap et al., 2016; 1). The park comprises 27,972 ha of evergreen Budiman et al., 2017). Hornbills are important not dipterocarp forest with some lower montane for- only to the tropical forest ecosystem as seed dis- est, and is located 24 kilometres from the Tawau persers, but may also contribute significant bene- town. In the north, it connects to Ulu Kalumpang fits to socio-economy (Franco and Minggu, 2019). Forest Reserve (50,736 ha), and the entire forest Here, we aim to identify the hornbill species pres- block is surrounded by plantations, mainly of oil ent at Tawau Hills Park, Sabah, a Protected Area palm (Phillipps and Phillipps, 2016; Tawau Hills little-known outside Malaysia.