A travel content creator was shocked to discover a plastic bag inside elephant dung while hiking near the Maliau Basin Studies Centre (MBSC).
Murphy Ng said the incident occurred on Dec 14 during a hike along the Avian Trail with an MBSC ranger, Azree. While observing several piles of elephant dung along the trail, Ng noticed something shiny among one of them.
“At first, I thought it was just a small candy wrapper, but when I pulled it out, I realised it was an entire plastic bag that was still intact,” he told the New Straits Times.
According to Ng, the ranger believed the elephant may have ingested the waste while roaming near Kalabakan Road, an area frequented by human activity.
Ng later shared the discovery on Facebook, urging the public to be more responsible with waste disposal.
“Your waste could end up inside the organs of an elephant, a turtle, a dolphin or other wildlife,” he wrote.
Sabah Wildlife Department director Mohd Soffian Abu Bakar said poor waste management, particularly outside urban areas, is likely the main factor behind such incidents.
He explained that solid waste disposal sites for materials such as soft plastics and non-biodegradable plastic bottles are often dug-out pits where waste is burned or buried.
“Wild animals such as elephants have specific diets. Elephant dung normally consists largely of grass and weeds,” he said.
Soffian noted that these grasses are more commonly found in areas with canopy gaps or forest edges, including forest-plantation boundaries, roadsides, old logging roads and riverbanks.
“These areas often overlap with human activity such as plantations and roadsides, which increases the likelihood of elephants encountering plastic waste,” he said.
“While elephants primarily feed on grass, the presence of plastic waste in grazing areas means there is a high risk they may inadvertently ingest plastic along with vegetation.”
Although elephants have large digestive systems, Soffian warned that the continuous ingestion of plastic could pose serious long-term health risks to the animals.
