Animals becoming extinct in one part of the world or another has become a daily news. It is disturbing that Sumatran rhino has become extinct in Malaysia after the last of the species died of cancer.
According to the The Wildlife Department in eastern Sabah state on Borneo island, 25-year-old rhino, Iman died on Saturday after she suffered significant pain from growing pressure of the uterine tumors?to her bladder.?
Emma Napper
She died six months after the news of the only male rhino in Sabah hit the news.?According to Department director Augustine Tuuga Iman's death came sooner than expected.?
Malaysia has been making efforts to breed the species and the Sabah authorities have harvested their cells in a bid to help boost the animal numbers.
¡°Despite us knowing that this would happen sooner rather than later, we are so very saddened by this news,¡± Sabah environment minister Christina Liew said.?
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BBC NHU
She further said, ¡°Its death was a natural one, and the immediate cause has been categorised as shock. Iman was given the very best care and attention since her capture in March 2014 right up to the moment she passed.¡±
Apparently, Iman had avoided death on many previous occasions. She was always nursed back to health by the wildlife officials. They obtained her egg cells in the hope to reproduce the critically endangered species through artificial insemination.
The Sumatran rhino is the smallest of the species and the only one to have two horns.
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Reuters
The species was found in a lot of places in Asia, including India?but their numbers reduced drastically, thanks to poaching and deforestation.?
According to the World Wildlife Fund there are only 80 of these rhinos left in the entire world.?
According to conservation group International Rhino Foundation, isolation of these rhinos rarely gives them the opportunity to breed and that is why they may become extinct in a matter of a few decades.?