PF-2 Water Buffalo (Bubalus bubalis) Disease Surveillance in the Area that Adjacents to the Ujung Kulon National Park as the Habitat for the Javan Rhinoceroses (Rhinoceros sondaicus)

Abstract

Ujung Kulon National Park (UKNP) is one of the conservation area in Indonesia that has an original ecosystem that includes the flora and the fauna. Within the national park, lies the elusive wildlife that protected by the government, Javan rhinoceros (Rhinoceros sondaicus). Javan rhinoceros is one of the rarest mammals with the estimated 67 individuals remained [1]. Geographically, UKNP is surrounded by 19 buffer villages. The buffer villages’ location is directly adjacent to the UKNP and the community’s livelihood pattern depended on the UKNP as it has become the free-range location of their water buffalo. Thus, it adds up the occurrence of the cross infection risk factor between the water buffalo and other ungulate sympatric animals in the UKNP (Javan rhinoceros and banteng). Surveillance study in 2014 with the collaboration of WWF Ujung Kulon, Livestock Agency of Pandeglang Sub District, and Cornell University to the community’s livestock in the buffer area of Rancapinang Village showed a significant prevalence of trypanosomiasis by 92% [2].

                International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) listed the Javan rhinoceros as the critically endangered (CE) or vulnerable to the extinction threats. One of the extinction threats is the disease outbreak, since until now the occurrence of the disease is assumed to be the causative factors of several Javan rhino’s death incidence.

                In 1982, 5 individuals of Javan rhino has been documented died suddenly and assumed to be caused by the infectious diseases (Hemorrhagic septicemia and anthrax) [3] and 14 Javan rhino’s deaths in UKNP from 2000-2018, mostly the cause of the death is unknown.