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BSBCC been honored to receive a visit from His Excellency Dag Juhlin-Dannfelt (Ambassador from Embassy of Sweden - Kuala Lumpur) today on 17th June 2019. During the visit, short briefings and guided tour were delivered by founder of BSBCC, Dr. Wong Siew Te. We enjoyed the good weather with good sharing session while went up to the BSBCC’s viewing platforms to observe the Sun Bears in their forest enclosure. Thank you for visiting us and we hope that the visit can help us to promote BSBCC and help us to spread the awareness!
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Video by Chiew Lin May Sniffing, Tapping, Rolling…. Panda, the sun bear has been enjoying lots of love from our volunteers and keepers doing everything they can to help Panda enhances her foraging skills. Loud bear bark thank you go out to APE Volunteers Celeste Kara Lequigan Chalk and Priya Colville giving the sun bears an opportunity to express their natural instinct !!
Want to make a difference? For more info on becoming a volunteer visit www.bsbcc.org.my BSBCC participated in a Community Outreach Programme at Kg, Sri Darun, Lahad Datu, a village located near Tabin Wildlife Reserve where rehabilitated sun bears at BSBCC were released. The programme conducted on 15th June 2019 was organized by HUTAN-Kinabatangan Orangutan Conservation Programme. A series of sessions was conducted to raise awareness on importance of protecting wildlife in their surrounding forests, particularly orangutans, pygmy elephants and sun bears. Information on the Sabah Wildlife Conservation Enactment 1997 was also delivered among the community audience to enhance knowledge on government regulations and efforts in protecting wildlife species in Sabah. Video by Chiew Lin May "When the buying stops, the killing will stop too!" Orphaned sun bear cubs have been taken from the wild for the illegal pet trade. They had been kept confined in a cage alone for a long period of time and loss their wild instinct. Please STOP kept or buys sun bear! Please report suspicious activity, be sure to REPORT illegal trade in bear part to: Wildlife Crime Hotline | Hotline Hidupan Liar | 野生物罪案热线 : +60 19 356 4194 BSBCC was invited to exhibit at a Sandakan primary school, SK Bt 16 Gum-Gum in conjunction to their Science week. The school students visited the exhibition at their science lab where BSBCC staff together with Sabah Wildlife Department staff conducted short introductions to wildlife in Sabah before the students visited the exhibited specimens. It was a worthwhile session with the school students and we hope to have more sessions as this in future to share about sun bears among the young generations. Video by Chiew Lin May "Beyond the bound of joy!" Logan and Wawa were play-fighting on the tree! Looks how agile they are! Today, a group of students from Chinese University Hong Kong visited BSBCC. A presentation on the sun bears and BSBCC were given to the students. After that, they observed the sun bears at the observation platform. Thank you for spending the time in BSBCC with the sun bears. Hope you all enjoy the day and help us to spread the words to Save the Sun Bears! #bsbcc #sunbear #chineseuniversityhongkong #visit Nature Classroom Penang co-organized two Eco Camps with the Rainforest Discovery Centre (RDC), a field trip based education with two different groups of participants which was set on 25th-29th May 2019 and 1st -5th June 2019. The Eco Camps brought the participants to visit BSBCC on 28th of May and 4th of June for 3 hours where presentations and briefing were given before heading to the observation platforms, and getting some hands-on activity such as making "Stick Paradox" enrichment for the Sun Bears by the end of their sessions. We were very happy to accommodate the very enthused participants about the Sun Bears, wildlife, and its habitat. It is hoped that they will start to care and be able to create awareness among their circles for the ripple effects in spreading information. #SaveSunBear #WildlifeEcoCamp #RDC #BSBCC #EnvironmentalEducation Text by Nithisha Nair (Intern student, University Putra Malaysia Bintulu Campus) Photos by Chiew Lin May As I introduced previously, here continues the story of our three musketeers. Romolina, Logan and Joe are now in fence training to prepare them for the forest enclosure. It took the trio 7 days to pass the fence training inside the training pen. On the first day, the observation began with Romolina, who immediately makes her way into the training pen. Fruits and honey were laid in a trail leading to a pile in the centre with the intention of luring the cubs out and giving them comfort. Nevertheless, it was pointless, Romolina being the explorer that she is made her way out by herself and explored the cage, ignoring the fruits completely. Upon sniffing the corners of cage, she earned her first zap, but that did not deter her from continuing her exploration, it was not until her second zap that she became wearier and alert. After that it took a lot of effort to get Romolina back into the training pen, she would climb around in the den observing the pen from afar no matter what food we used to lure her out. All things aside, all it took to get her back out was dead wood and she happily made her way out digging and rummaging. The observation proceeded with Joe on the second day. He had his eye and taste buds stuck on to the trail of honey and fruits towards the centre. When that was finished, he roamed around the cage earning his zaps, which eventually led to him suckling on his paw in the water container. His zaps were an obvious lesson to him though, after a few days in the pen Joe was smart enough to claw his food away from the hot wire very slowly and carefully. He showed amazing progress and seemed to be the best out of the trio. On the third day it was Logan’s turn to train. He was nothing short of Joe in following the trail, he licked every bit of honey left on the ground with none to spare. But once he got zapped, he was the hardest to get back into the training pen. Eventually with help he was able to come back out and learn to claw food away from the wire. After the three were used to the training pen and was able to explore on their own, they were put in the training pen together in hopes that they would encourage each other to explore their surroundings, and when that didn’t result in a very positive outlook, they were let into the training pen with their integrated buddies, to know more about integration do read our blog titled ‘Catch Up with Our New Friends’! Upon being integrated and provided with dead wood, it was clear that the trio were more comfortable in the training pen. They were also seen clawing their food from under the fence, proving that they all passed indoor fence training with flying colours. Thus, it was time for outdoor fence training. The first day of outdoor fence training, also known as their release to Pen D, Joe was the first to touch ground but got zapped while exploring and was afraid after. With Romolina, she ran up the enclosure but went into the training pen after getting zapped, she then proceeded to explore the area below the ramp. Last but not least, upon exploring Logan got zapped, in a panic he rushed his way to the top of the enclosure completely forgetting about the wires and getting zapped several more times. When he reached the top, he climbed on a tree vocalizing while refusing to come down. The trio remained at the bottom of the enclosure exploring and occasionally pacing. That was until Wawa, another one of our bears were integrated with the cubs in the enclosure, she managed to guide Logan to the top of the enclosure, and eventually Romolina followed. After that the two were more than comfortable to remain at the top, exploring, digging, climbing, playing with the water from the sprinklers and sun bathing, they even refused to go back home for two nights! Joe was a tough shell to crack, while the two was living their best lives in the enclosure, Joe remained suckling and staying at the ramp. No amount of integration was able to bring Joe up, eventually we decided to try a new tactic, as soon as he set foot on the ramp, we closed the guillotine door so he would not run back in, and then we encouraged him to explore with treats thrown on the grass. It worked! With two days of that, he eventually made his way up the forest enclosure, and once again with the help of our amazing teacher, Wawa, Joe was guided to the top, on his 13th day with outdoor fence training he was finally able to properly explore the enclosure and we could not be happier! Fence training may seem extreme, in some cases even cruel, but in our case, it is vital and completely necessary to ensure that our bears do not escape once they are released to our forest enclosure. And as we all know; the forest enclosure release is an important step towards their journey in being released to the wild! The voltage of our fence is always monitored and ensured not to be harmful to our sun bears.
So here continues the journey of our trio towards their happy ever after! Today on 1st of June 2019, Dr. Wong Siew Te personally led a group of student from Brighton Grammar School, Australia to experience the life at BSBCC. The visit itself filled with activities such as talk from Dr. Wong himself, guided tour, sun bear explorer activity at the platform and also enrichments making and giving the enrichments to the bears. Thanks for the visit and also for adopting Mary the Sun Bear! |
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