Based History of the Ornithology of Sabah, Malaysian Borneo
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GAZETTEER AND SITE-BASED HISTORY OF THE ORNITHOLOGY OF SABAH, MALAYSIAN BORNEO FREDERICK H. SHELDON OCCASIONAL PAPERS MUSEUM OF NATURAL SCIENCE LOUISIANA STATE UNIVERSITY, NO. 86 Baton Rouge, October, 2015 GAZETTEER AND SITE-BASED HISTORY OF THE ORNITHOLOGY OF SABAH, MALAYSIAN BORNEO FREDERICK H. SHELDON Museum of Natural Science and Department of Biological Sciences, Louisiana State University, 119 Foster Hall, Baton Rouge, LA 70803, USA E-mail: [email protected] ABSTRACT The gazetteer lists sites in the state of Sabah, Malaysia, where birds have been collected, studied, or watched. Its purpose is to identify locations for research and birding in Sabah and to provide a brief scientific history of the more important sites. Each site description includes latitude, longitude, and general information on location. For many sites, elevation, habitat, scientific or birdwatching importance, historical notes, citations of key papers, specimen records, and records of certain species are also included. Key words: Birds, Birdwatching, Borneo, Georeference, History, Research, Scientific collecting INTRODUCTION The Malaysian state of Sabah, formerly known as British North Borneo, has a rich ornithological history extending back to the first publication on its birds by Motley and Dillwyn (1855). This gazetteer provides a view of that history by listing and characterizing sites where ornithologists have collected and studied birds and where birders have watched them. The gazetter is a revised version of one that was included in Sheldon et al. (2001). It corrects mistakes in the original version by taking advantage of the development of new methods for finding and georeferencing localities (e.g., Google Earth, online gazetteers, and GPS devices). It also adds sites and references that were missed in the earlier version and sites that have been visited by ornithologists or birdwatchers since 2001. New site information derives mainly from published papers and not from birdwatching trip reports, unless those reports refer to unusual localities or birds. Some older birdwatching references are included in the gazetter because they were in the original version. The gazetteer indicates (explicitly or implicitly) why some locations were explored by ornithologists early in the history of Sabah. Mt. Kinabalu always attracted naturalists because it dominated the north Bornean landscape and promised scientific riches to its first explorers. Most other sites, however, were visited as much for convenience as scientific promise. These less well-known sites were often in the vicinity of the British North Borneo Chartered Company’s offices, or along the Kinabatangan River or Kota Kinabalu-to-Tenom railroad, or in timber camps and plantations, where 1 food, transport, and labor were available. Not until the 1950s did ornithologists begin to explore the deep interior of Sabah away from colonial amenities (e.g., Mt. Trus Madi, Mt. Meliau, and Mt. Magdalena), and not until the 1980s did they conduct quantitative studies of ecology and conservation (Sheldon et al. 2001). Nowadays, with a good network of roads and research stations and large numbers of Malaysian and international scientists and birders working and visiting Sabah, few parts of the state remain ornithologically unexplored. Figure 1: Map of important ornithological sites in Sabah (Google Earth). In respect to forest quality, parts of Sabah have changed a great deal since the early years of ornithological exploration. Virtually all forest outside of parks, conservation reserves, and some mountains has been logged. Until 40-50 years ago, the lowlands and uplands east of Maliau Basin, were essentially untouched by man except adjacent to the Kinabatangan and Segama rivers. This area held the most magnificent rainforest in the world. Now the only substantial unlogged remnants of this remarkable forest are in Danum Valley, Imbak Canyon, and Tawau Hills Park. Some other unlogged low elevation forest also remains, usually in areas with ultramafic or sandy soils that make the trees less valuable as timber and the land less amenable to agriculture (e.g., in the Tawai Forest Reserve). In contrast to forests disturbed by the modern logging boom, many other areas of Sabah have been subjected to shifting cultivation and consequent 2 forest disturbance for hundreds of years, especially along the west, north, and northeast coasts, and in the interior from Sipitang to Pensiangan and from Tenom to Ranau. Despite this long-term disturbance, most of these areas remain rich in birds and are excellent places for birdwatching and study as long as native forest has been allowed to regenerate. Even the southeastern dipterocarp forest, despite its recent devastation, continues to hold its original bird species, although in different levels of abundance (Sheldon et al. 2010, Edwards et al. 2011). In areas where the forest has not been allowed to regenerate, but instead has been converted to plantation or repeatedly burned, rainforest birds are largely extirpated. This happened >100 years ago in the northern part of Sabah (most of the Kudat Division and Kota Belud and Beluran districts), and explains why that part of the state has not been well-studied ornithologically (Fig. 1); it holds few interesting breeding birds. More recently, especially in the last 30 years, the expansive growth of oil palm—a particularly poor habitat for native birds (Edwards et al. 2010, Sheldon et al. 2010)--has permanently removed rainforest and its avifauna from much of Sabah’s eastern lowlands and is now expanding in upland areas in western Sabah. As a result of this expansion, many of the localities listed in the gazetteer are no longer interesting as ornithological or birdwatching sites. They serve only as reminders of a past era. METHODS The gazetteer is organized alphabetically. However, it is intended to be searched using a search function. Thus, many lesser sites are not listed alphabetically, but rather under more inclusive sites (e.g., Laban Rata is under Mt. Kinabalu). Because variations in site spellings are common, alternative spellings are listed in parentheses after the accepted spelling. Sites on Mt. Kinabalu, whose names originated in the Dusun language, are usually provided with two spellings. Dusun spellings are from Beaman et al. (1996). Also included are alternative spellings (some quaint) of place names from old sources, such as the 18th and 19th century maps of Alexander Dalrymple (Durand and Curtis 2014:52) and D. D. Daly (1888a), and Rutter’s (1922) history of British North Borneo. Language problems are usually circumvented by translating Malay descriptors to English. Translated words include banjaran (mountain range), bukit (hill), danau (lake), gunung (mountain), kampung (village, abbreviated as “Kg.”), padang (field or open area), pulau (island), sungai (river), tanjung (promontory, sometimes abbreviated “Tg.”), and teluk (bay). Sungai Bole is thus called Bole River, and Kampung Maang is simply Maang or Kg. Maang. However, certain Malay descriptors are simpler and more useful than their English counterparts, e.g., kuala, river mouth or confluence of rivers, and ulu, the headwaters of a river or river system. Kuala Papar is the mouth of the Papar River; Ulu Papar is the Papar River watershed in the Crocker Range. These useful terms are retained. Also retained are local names that are widely used, such as Pulau Tiga. In the original gazetteer, locality coordinates were read from Gazetteer No. 10 of the United States Board on Geographical Names (1955, 1970), a tactical pilotage chart (TPC L-11BG, scale 1:500,000, Ministry of Defense, UK, 1976), and a Sabah map (Rampaian 37 Jenis C, Cetakan 2- PPNM, Director of National Mapping, Malaysia 1981). Other coordinates were from Tangah and Wong (1995) and gazetteers appended to papers (Davis 1962, Davies and Payne 1982, Stuebing 1991, Mat-Salleh 1993, Beaman et 3 al. 1996). Since then, sites of 59 limestone habitats have been added from the gazetteer of Lim and Kiew (1997), and other new sites have been added using the maps above and online gazetteers. Coordinates of all sites have been checked using the Geonet Names Server (http://earth-info.nga.mil/gns/html/index.html) and www.geonames.org, and many have been checked in person with a GPS device or via Google Earth (earth.google.com). In some cases, site names describe wide areas and, thus, their coordinates are approximations. Localities that lack latitude and longitude could not be found in gazetteers or on maps. Major ornithological sites are noted on the map in Fig. 1. For those seeking convenient birdwatching sites, Phillipps and Phillipps (2014: 328-333) provide descriptions of many, with maps and short lists of birds found in each. Comprehensive information on modern bird research and watching on Mt. Kinabalu, including online birdwatching records, is available in Harris et al. (2012). Taxonomy Bird names in the gazetteer follow the classification of Gill and Donsker (2014). Forest Reserves Sabah has numerous Forest Reserves with varying purposes. The names and classification of many of these reserves have changed in recent years, so older reserve designations may no longer apply (although they are often mentioned in the gazetteer). Current reserves are shown in Fig. 2, and their purposes are described in the following classification (Sabah Foresty Department website, April 2015): Class I - Protection Forest. “Forest conserved for the protection of watershed and maintenance of the stability of essential climatic and other environmental factors. These areas cannot be logged. There are 342,848 hectares of Protection Forest in 44 locations throughout Sabah.” [Most of these reserves were logged previously and are now protected from future logging and conversion to plantation.] Class II - Commercial Forest. “Forest allocated for logging to supply timber and other produce contributing to the State's economy. Logging is carried out according to Sustainable Forest Management (SFM) principles. Collectively there are 2,683,480 hectares of Commercial Forest Reserves in 31 locations throughout Sabah.” [Commercial logging is now largely finished in Sabah, except where forest is being cleared for plantations.