 We have been working around the clock since our multinational bear moving team arrived in Sandakan last Saturday. We have been sweating more than 10 hours a day over the past 4 days working really hard to make this event go smoothly, from cleaning the bear house, enriching each bear den, checking the bear enclosures, and finally, moving the bears into our new bear house. Today is the second day of the moving. We moved the four young females in the morning: Kuamut, Lawa, Jelita, and Cerah,, followed by the big dominant male Bermuda in the afternoon. The move went smoothly and the bears settling down in their new home smoothly.   Sun bear is the smallest bear species, yet, like canines, there claws are the longest proportionally to their body size.   All sun bears have a unique chest patch. No two individual share the same pattern. Here are the chest patch of Kuamut (upper) and Bermuda (lower photo)  The coordination of the medical and the moving team is getting better and better today. We can process a bear in 20 mins. Thanks for all the Sabah Wildlife Department staffs, experts and volunteers helping us at BSBCC!  Weighing Jelita, the young female sun bear.  Performing physical and health check on Cerah. Cerah was featured in Beartrek. Now she is an young adult bear weighing 34 kg – a fat bear, so to say.  Position Jelita in her new home for recovery. She too is another fat and good looking bear.  The fifth bear we moved today was Bermuda, the dominant male bear in our centre. Although not the heaviest, he is by far the most fierce and aggressive.  Finally, these bears are settling down smoothly in the new home. Sun bear is the most arboreal bear. Our new bear den give them a lot of opportunity to climb high above the ground and observe the surrounding from higher level. The bear basket that we provide them 5 feet above the ground is the best thing to give them comfort and security. Don’t believe me? Look for yourself!    Five done today, 4 more to go!
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Today marked history of BSBCC as we are starting to move the 12 bears in the old bear house to the state of the art new bear house 1. Our plan today is to move Om, Ah Chong and Suria in the morning but the move have to delay because we have found a problem with the locking device of the bear den’s door in the new bear den during our final checking an hour before the move. Luckily, the issue has been solved immediately and everything went according to plan.  This is the last day for Jelita and Cerah to stay in their old bear house.  We start the entire procedure with Om, one of our three males bear in the centre. Om is a 5 year old bears who was confiscated by the Wildlife Department from private owner some 5 years ago. I have the privilege to witness his growth over the past 5 years and have been taking good care of him over the past 5 years.  We sedated the bears for the moving. We took this opportunity to perform a complete physical check on the bears. Om’s teeth showing a healthy adult tooth growth. The canines of sun bears are particular huge. In fact, their teeth is the biggest proportionally among all other species of bears.  The sun bear medical team. From left to right: Veterinarian Dr Cecelia Boklin from Sabah Wildlife Department who station at Sepilok Orangutan Rehabilitation Centre and BSBCC, me, Annemarie from Animal Asia Foundation, and Maria from Oakland Zoo.  Dr. Cecilia and senior Ranger Elis taking blood from Om.  Om recovered very well after the sedation. It was very interesting to see how he carefully checked his new home by sniffing every single inch of his cage and genteelly tapped with his claws, just like aye-aye use their finger tapping on tree trunk to pin point the location of the beetle larvae.  The next bear we moved was Suria. A bit more than one year old, she is the youngest female bear in our centre, weighing 25 kg.  She had a wound on her body and Dr. Cecilia is treating her.  Volunteers Audrey and Howard come from Australia to help us documenting the entire process with video camera and still photo shots.  Suria’s front paw.  Suria’s hind paw. Is their feet human like or what??  Ah Chong is the last bear we moved today. He top the scale at 65 kg, the fattest bear in our centre and the biggest I have ever seen for the Bornean subspecies. He is just huge!  At the end of the day, Om manage to settle down in his new basket.  Like everyone who work really hard today, Om too was tired and sleep in his basket like a baby!  Suria also recovering well from her sedation and exploring her new home after she recovered from her sedation. It has been a very good day. 3 moved, 9 to go!
 Text by Ian Hall http://arkitrek.com:80/http:/arkitrek.com/bsbcc-site-handover/ Construction of the Borneo Sun Bear Conservation Centre (BSBCC) has started. On 29th June the site was formally handed over to the contractor by representatives of the landowners, Sabah Wildlife Department and Sabah Forestry Departement. Our contractor Mee San of Lahad Datu now has 6 months to complete the first phase building valued at MYR 600,000. On completion we will have a new bear house with night time bear dens for 20 animals. Simultaneously we are implementing our Bear Action Teams (BATs) program that forms partnerships with ‘voluntourism’ organisations worldwide. Over the next six months teams from UK Scouts, Raleigh, World Challenge, Wilderness Expertise and Camps International will assist BSBCC with construction of peripheral infrastructure. This infrastructure includes 1km of electric fencing, 400m of boardwalk, 400m of trails, screening walls, biodigester and waste water management system. With both the new bear house and electric fencing in place we plan to relocate the bears to their new home in January 2010. Funding permitting we can then start phase II which will make BSBCC fully operational with the completion of a visitor centre, quarantine area and observation gallery. After nearly two years in preparation it’s exciting to be underway. It won’t be long until those bears are climbing trees again!    Text by Ian Hall  Our proposal for a Sun Bear Conservation Centre in Borneo has moved closer to reality thanks to an extravagant Fundraising Dinner held in Kota Kinabalu in November.
The event which was organised by our partner LEAP succeeded in raising over half a million ringgit. This money was then matched one-to-one by the State Government to give us a total which we hope will be enough to build Phase One. The first priority is to enclose 1 hectare of the Sepilok Forest Reserve with electric fences. This will allow a controlled release of bears into their natural habitat.  On menu... sun bear in Phnom Penh restaurant
While doing a random of googling on internet, I come across this sun bear story that worth to read. It’s time for many of us to really help sun bears. Until now, I still do not understand why sun bear has to end up such as sad faith? From my studies of wild bears, they are suffering from lack of food in the forest and have to compete and kill each other to reduce competition. It is taught to be a wild sun bear! Their habitat has been destroyed, big time, by human on the name of development and making ways for agriculture to feed more people on Earth. The super cute babies are kept as pets, and from there they begin their “life in hell”. And finally, sun bears are slaughtered in cold blood in the name of “delicacy.” Sometime I wonder if sun bears are cursed. Are they? -Wong ==================================================== http://www.mirror.co.uk/sunday-mirror/2008/02/24/bear-soup-98487-20329369/ Brit saves rare bears from being eaten By Frank Thorne And Susie Boniface, sundaymirror.co.uk 24/02/2008 Bears Srey Ya and Jo-Jo playfully rub noses as they get their first taste of freedom... after being saved from the cooking pot. The pair were destined for the tables of restaurants in the Cambodian capital of Phnom Penh, where diners are prepared to pay up to £500 a time for a bowl of Bear Paw Soup. |
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