Text By BSBCC
Photos By BSBCC & Scuba Zoo

Finally able to breathe true freedom in the wild…

​It was a challenging day. All hopes and prayers were solely for this release activity to go as smoothly as planned. The release team’s preparations already started at 3pm on May 16th, 2015 at the bear house of BSBCC when Sabah Wildlife Department vet, Dr. Laura Benedict started the sedation process. A full physical health examination showed that Natalie was completely healthy at 45kg of weight. Dr. Laura Benedict inserted a microchip into Natalie’s body.

The team woke up early in the morning on May 17th 2015, and got ready at Tabin Headquarter at 6.30 am. After a full assessment, the weather was considered safe for the helicopter to land at Tabin Headquarter. Once the helicopter arrived, the operation was split into three different trips. With the first two trips the team entered the mud volcano of Tabin to evaluate and identify the most suitable release site.  ​

Text by Ryan Pyne
Photos by Ryan Pyne & BSBCC

Hi my name is Ryan and I am from Melbourne, Australia. I recently volunteered at Bornean Sun Bear Conservation Centre, and what an amazing experience it was. Where do I start?

 
The People

I have never worked with such a fantastic, smart, dedicated, motivated, helpful and caring group of people before. All the staff at the centre are truly dedicated and passionate about what they are doing. This comes through clearly when you work along side them. You only have to talk to the founder of the centre, Wong, for a few seconds before you see his passion for the Sun Bears and his vision of what they are working towards achieving at the Bornean Sun Bear Conservation Centre. Working with all the other staff you can definitely see Wong's passion and drive is shared amongst all at the centre.

We then walked around the Outdoor Enclosure throwing fruit to the active outside bears. We would sit there for a while watching them enjoy their meal before then making our way back to the kitchen to prepare the bears afternoon snack of porridge (I know right… Goldielocks and all).

PORRIDGE TIME! All the bears return to their pens for the night so it is time for their porridge treat. Each bear receives one tray of porridge. The tray is slid into the cage through a slot in the door. The bears know what is going on as they sit at the doors eagerly anticipating their afternoon treat. SLURP. Within seconds the tray is licked completely clean.
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Text by Kara Huggins (Intern from the University of the Sunshine Coast)
Photos by BSBCC staffs
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Natalie, Latin for "birthday", referring to the birthday of Christ, or Christmas, seemed a fitting name for the arrival at BSBCC of a 3 month old orphan sun bear on the 23rd of December, 2010. From the time of her rescue by the Sabah Wildlife Department through to her rearing by the BSBCC keepers and her introduction to the outdoor enclosure, Natalie has shown courage, determination and a natural instinct allowing her to quickly develop into a confident, forest loving sun bear and the group leader of Ah Lun, Runggus and Julaini.
As soon as the forest door opens in the morning she is out exploring using her boundless energy to climb high into her favorite tree, foraging for a meal of insects using her long tongue and sharp claws.Here are the photos show Natalie in different age and grow.

Natalie is fiercely independent and has developed all the necessary bear instincts to qualify her to be released back into the wild once funds are found to start the rehabilitation process.
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Merry Christmas to all! Share the love!

Following up on the indoor integration of the Mary and Natalie groups, today we saw the culmination of the exercise – the whole group outside sharing one forest enclosure!
By regularly allowing the indoor socializing and ‘wrestling parties’ these bears so love, the bear house team ensured the two groups remained on friendly terms.
Finally the time had come to test their ‘friendliness’ outdoors, where controlling a tense situation or fight would be impossible. A few of us entered the forest enclosure to scatter loads of fruit which would serve to distract from conflict, and fill tummies, hopefully creating a contented environment. Having only fed and observed from the feeding platform into this forest enclosure, I felt a little like being in someone’s home without their permission!

As the BSBCC presently only has 3 outdoor pens large enough to accommodate several bears at the same time, some seriously strategic ‘bear shuffling’ has to occur in the bearhouse in order to get the right bears into the right cages for the outdoor exit ramps.

There are 2 existing groups that need to be integrated so they can occupy one outdoor pen instead of two, freeing up the second outdoor pen for Bermuda, a large mature male who is eagerly awaiting his outdoor sessions.

The two groups are ‘matriarchal’. The’’ Mary’’ group consists of 6 sub adult bears – little Mary, Ah Bui, Debbie, Koko, Bongkud and young male Fulung. 2nd group is Natalie’s group of four, with Natalie, Ah Lun,  Runggus and young male Julaini.

Bear etiquette dictates that a polite introduction is by way of curiously sniffing through an interconnecting gateway - if no sign of aggression is seen, then the gateway is opened cautiously by the bear keeper, and one bear may proceed into the adjoining cage where the sniffing procedure progresses to a stage of playful paw inductions. Hereafter it is quite permissible to raucously cavort around the cage and wrestle in the hammock (or other enrichment provided) until one or both bears are completely exhausted. Suckling on a bear’s ears is a privilege for best friends only.

Integration started on the 9th September by daily introducing one bear from Mary’s group to the Natalie group bears, one bear at a time over an hour or so. These introductions over the week went amazingly well with no hint of aggression as each bear learnt the smells, stature and behaviour of the others, in spite of two females being on heat during the process.

Text and photos by Chiew Lin May
On March 13th 2013, Ah Lun and Julaini stepped foot into the forest for the first time. These 4 sub-adult sun bears are now spending their days roaming, foraging, and digging in the Bornean Sun Bear Conservation Centre (BSBCC) forest enclosure.

Now Natalie and Rungus are confidently roaming the forest. Once the door is open both of them will go out immediately. They are enjoying their freedom. They have large trees to climb, decayed wood/logs, soil to dig in, and a natural forest to explore. Through the forest enclosure they look for a comfortable place to take a rest. They are doing well and spending the rest of their days getting used to the sights and sounds of their new environment where they are learning what it takes to live like wild sun bears.
Natalie is an excellent climber, and spends much of her time in trees foraging for her meals, insects, by using her long, sharp claws. Natalie is a great leader. She is very independent and has taught herself how to climb high up in the trees. Additionally, she loves to be outside. Rungus likes to makes a mess by scraping off all the soil or decayed wood she can searching for termites, beetles and other invertebrates. Ah Lun and Julaini surprisingly have shown some confident roaming in the forest enclosure already. Ah Lun prefers to spend her time alone, playing happily in the forest enclosure. It took Julaini a while to come out of his door and take a few steps. He was extremely wary of his new surroundings. He sniffed and foraged around the entire place.
It has been very heart-warming to see them grow in confidence and strength, as they become used to using all four limbs and climbing high up in the trees. All these things encourage natural, wild behaviour. They are all making great progress.
Bornean Sun Bear Conservation Centre (BSBCC) is in a wonderful location for true rehabilitation as the forest has huge trees sun bears love. Seeing this forest dwelling species digging and climbing happily in the forest all day long is extremely motivating.
Here are a couple of photos of Natalie, Rungus, Ah Lun and Julaini roaming, digging and climbing trees at BSBCC forest enclosure.

On 16th March 2013, Bongkud had integrated with Natalie. Natalie is famous with “The Group Leader”. Natalie was one of our rescued sun bear by Sabah Wildlife Department that sent to Bornean Sun Bear Conservation Centre (BSBCC). Natalie is a Latin girl name which is to remember her arrival two days before Christmas.
Once the gate was opened, an active and playful sun bear, Natalie was the first who went to approached and sniffed to Bongkud. Through the Bongkud expression, she was so happy to get a new playmate again although Natalie’s body size was bigger than her. Bongkud try her best fought back and showed she has strength too. All of the strong claws and canines were showed up during the play fight. None of the sun bears showed any aggression and frustrated behaviour. Both of them spend a whole day for chasing, rolling, mock fight and climbing around together. It was a great integration!! They integrated well and seem to begin to understand and trusted each other better. Natalie shows the most dominance.

At the Bornean Sun Bear Conservation Centre (BSBCC), all confiscated orphaned sun bears arriving at the centre must undergo electric fence training before they can be released into the BSBCC’s forest enclosure. Entering the forest enclosure is a very important phase for these bears, as they take their first steps onto the forest floor, often after spending many years in cages.
Some of the bears may take only one day to enter the forest, whereas some may take one week and others one month or more before they put all four of their feet onto the soil.
On 5th March 2013, the door that connects our BSBCC bear house to the forest enclosure was opened to let the sub-adult sun bear group consisting of - Natalie, Rungus, Ah Lun and Julaini access to the forest.
As expected, the "Group Leader" Natalie was the first one to lead the group to explore the conditions around the newly opened door. However, none of the bears stepped foot into the forest on that first day.

The 12th March 2013 was the day that the BSBCC team members had been waiting for!!
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10:28am: Rungus walking down the ramp to get the food and honey. Excitement, caution and curiosity were all displayed on Rungus’ face and in her movements.