By Olivia Miwil
KOTA KINABALU: A travel content creator was taken by surprise after discovering a plastic bag inside elephant dung during a hike near the Maliau Basin Studies Centre (MBSC).
Murphy Ng said the encounter happened on Dec 14 while he was hiking along the Avian Trail with an MBSC ranger, Mr Azree.
"We spotted several piles of elephant dung along the trail and I noticed something metallic and shiny.
"At first, I thought it was just a small candy wrapper, but when I pulled it out, it turned out to be an entire plastic bag, completely intact," he told the New Straits Times.
He said the ranger believed the elephant might have eaten trash while roaming along Kalabakan Road.
Ng shared the incident on Facebook, urging people not to dispose of waste indiscriminately.
"Your waste could end up inside the organs of an elephant, a turtle, a dolphin or other wildlife."
Sabah Wildlife Department director Mohd Soffian Abu Bakar said poor waste management, particularly outside urban areas, was likely the main cause of such incidents.
He said solid waste disposal sites for materials such as soft plastics or non-biodegradable plastic bottles were often dug-out pits where waste was burnt or buried.
"Wild animals like elephants have specific diets. Elephant dung consists largely of grass and weed.
"These grass are not commonly found in dense forests, but rather in areas with canopy gaps or forest edges, such as along forest-plantation boundaries, roadsides, old logging roads or riverbanks.
"It is in these areas where elephants usually find their preferred food sources.
"As these locations often overlap with human activity, including plantations and roadsides, the likelihood of elephants encountering waste such as plastic is very high.
"Elephants feed mainly on grass, but when plastic waste is present in areas where they graze, there is a strong possibility that they may inadvertently ingest plastic along with the vegetation."
Soffian said although elephants have large digestive systems, continuous ingestion of plastic could be harmful to them in the long term.
Elephant expert Dr Cheryl Cheah said although currently there are no known elephant deaths in Sabah directly related to them ingesting plastic.
However, the WWF-Malaysia Sabah Landscapes Programme Protect Pillar Lead said it could pose a health issue for them over the long term especially if they become dependent on food scraps from garbage dumps as their main source of food.
"This is because the food scraps can potentially cause food poisoning and other ailments such as stomach problems, infection, exposure to chemicals, eventually resulting in death."
However, the WWF-Malaysia Sabah Landscapes Programme Protect Pillar Lead said it could pose a health issue for them over the long term especially if they become dependent on food scraps from garbage dumps as their main source of food.
"This is because the food scraps can potentially cause food poisoning and other ailments such as stomach problems, infection, exposure to chemicals, eventually resulting in death."
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