KOTA KINABALU: Iman, the last Sumatran rhinoceros in Malaysia that died towards the end of last week, was given round-the-clock intensive support before its death.
Experts successfully brought her back to good health on several occasions and were able to extract egg cells from the mammal.
SWD director Augustine Tuuga, in a statement, said Iman’s death came rather sooner than the department had expected and that the state had hoped it would have been still possible to obtain some egg cells from Iman for the proposed Malaysia-Indonesia collaboration on this species.
Following Iman’s passing, experts are now looking at other ways in which the two countries can usefully collaborate based on their different experiences over the past decade.
“For Sabah that includes management of female Sumatran rhinos with reproductive pathology, safe harvesting of gametes from living rhinos, and cell culture. Iman and Tam both live on as cell cultures in Malaysia,” said Sabah Tourism, Culture and Environment Minister Datuk Christina Liew in a statement. – Bernama
