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Text & Photos by Seng Yen Wah Itam,is a lovely bear with a slightly round body. She is seven months old, the youngest female bear in BSBCC. Itam was originally from Kg Maimatom, Kemabong. But, she was found at Kg. Kuala Sabinait, Pagalungan, Nabawan. The owner of an orchard heard his dogs were barking. When he went to have a look he found Itam alone. At that time, Itam appeared weak and had some dog bite wounds. The owner was kept her for 21 days. After that, he decided to surrender Itam to Sabah Wildlife Department when she was being kept at the Lok Kawi Wildlife Park. On the 27th of July 2020, Itam came to BSBCC. On her arrival, her weight was 11 kg. She has a shiny coat and a unique chest mark. Unfortunately, we found,whilst conducting her general body checkup,that she has a severe dental problem. We believed that it may be caused by her stress-related behaviour - cage biting. Itam is not picky on food. She will try every new food that is offered to her. Her top three favourite foods are milk, egg, and fruits. Now, she weighs 12.35kg. Most of the time, Itam is shy. She spends more time resting. The basket is one of her favourite places to hide. She is always seen peeking from the basket. Other than that, she enjoys staying on the hammock and resting with the belly up. If she wants to have a better view, she prefers to stay at the hanging platform. When she is resting, nothing bothers her. She chills and relaxes! However, Itam is very alert to the environment. She always keeps her eyes wide open to observe her surroundings. Her moves are always careful and quiet. When you look into her eyes, they look alert with fear. A story lies in her eyes. She always stays in a corner or stays up high. Once she feels threatened, she charges and gives a warning bark. Then, she hides. We do not know what happened to her before. But, we believe that she has suffered a lot and this has caused her to be traumatized. Sun bears are excellent climbers. However, Itam is clumsy in climbing. Instead of using her claw, she is using her paw and teeth to support during climbing. In the wild, cubs will be attached to their mother until two to three years old and,during this period,the cubs will learn from their mothers. However, Itam is now alone. Itam always looks up and looks as though she has many thoughts in her head. Maybe she is missing her mother and her natural home. We can help her now by encouraging her more natural behaviour. We provide different types of enrichment for her so, she will be able to learn to be a real bear. In BSBCC, She will receive intensive care. It will take her time and patience to forget her trauma. We are believe that she will grow into a confident young sun bear ready for her second chance of life at the BSBCC.
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Video by Chiew Lin May Ready to venture out into their forest! Logan and Romolina are playing in the rain! Video by Chiew Lin May Amaco was found by a plantation worker in the middle of the forest when he was still a cub. He was kept as a pet and fed rice and condensed milk in the last 18 years. An inappropriate diet in the pet trade can lead to long term dental damage. He stressed upon arrival. Amaco has been on a long road to recovery since he was rescued. He loves engages with enrichments. He likes to play fight with his best friends – Chin and Panda. Please share his story! Video by Chiew Lin May Day 7: Favourite! Termite Mound! BSBCC runs a number of enrichment activities for the sun bears in their care. It promotes physical and mental stimulation or to ensure the sun bears' well-being. Little Kipaku learns to break the termite mound and feeding on termites! Text by Chiew Lin May Photos by Sabah Wildlife Department, Seng Yen Wah & Chiew Lin May Meet little Kipaku, an active 5-month old male sun bear cub. He was being kept as a house pet by a local villager family in Kampung Kipaku, Tambunan, Sabah. The story reported to the rescue team was that they found him ‘wandering alone’ in the forest fire area. The family then decided to hand the cub over to the Sabah Wildlife Department on July 16th, 2020. Kipaku’s story is similar with the other rescued sun bears. Sun bears are facing extinction in the wild if uncontrolled poaching activities or losing their forest homes to fire, logging and palm oil plantations are still continuing. Sadly, it is believed that his mother undoubtedly was killed intentionally or perished in the fires. He arrived at BSBCC on July 18th, 2020. He appeared dull and with dry hair on his coat when he arrived. Thanks to the Sabah Wildlife Department’s Wildlife Rescue Unit who saved Kipaku’s life. Following his arrival, Kipaku was placed into quarantine. He adapted to his new life of freedom. He receives round-the-clock care from his surrogate mother by helping and encouraging him to gain back confidence and build up his strength – be WILD. He has shown tremendous growth in the last few days. He now weighs 7.20kg. We are trying to get Kipaku to eat the nutritious food he needs to grow. He is a grub lover and is very messy with his food!! His favourite foods are mealworms, ants and milk. He has a peculiar way of foraging his food by using his tiny sharp claws to tear it up (in a gentle way). Never mess with him when he is eating! Kipaku wants to bark a “Huge thanks” to our lovely sponsorship, Fido Premium Milk Powder from TTL Distributions Sdn. Bhd. (http://www.ttl.com.my/) for being part of his journey. His health is now in a stable condition. He has been fed a milk formula five times a day for his growth. Sun bear cubs remain dependent on their mothers for the first two to three years of age. Poor care and the psychological trauma of losing his mother means a lot to Little Kipaku. He has been kept in captivity, growing up alone and habituated to the presence of humans. All Kipaku knew was being scared and stressed. He will growl and bawl when no one is beside him. But lacking a fear of humans, the bear is ill equipped to survive and will be vulnerable to hunters in the wild. Throughout his rehabilitation process, we are minimizing the number of caretakers to reduce the habituation to human contact, keep his wild behaviours and slowly support increasing his independence. His personality has begun to emerge! He is an agile and unique bear. Kipaku can be a challenge to keep mentally occupied – stolen from the wild and never had the chance to learn survival skills from his mother. We provide a variety of environmental enrichment such as different types of young leaves, termite mounds, dead wood, logs, and branches to promote physical activity and prepare him for life back in the wild. It is heart-warming to find out that Kipaku has strong wild instincts - foraging, climbing and defence skills. He has a deep love for digging and tearing! He can spend time digging and tearing dead logs for ants or termites, and for FUN too! Through enrichment, Kipaku can have a great day, every day! He is smart and full of curiosity. He will examine, dig, play and destroy it. He shows great climbing skills and is learning to be a very skilled bear! He uses all of his senses to explore different tastes of freedom. Kipaku will not miss a play wrestle with his surrogate mother. He will begin playing, rolling and pawing. He loves soaking in the swimming bucket and splashes water to beat the hot day. Kipaku tends to slow down on his busy activities and prefers to suckle on his front paw to seek comfort. He is a baby and will vocalize his feelings. He always keeps himself busy BUT starts to become grumpy when he feels uncomfortable with something! He is excited about everything that is offered to him - these little things are simple but are making the bear world of difference to his life! Kipaku will undergo rehabilitation at BSBCC in order to one day be returned to the wild. He begins the long rehabilitation process of learning and developing the survival skills and behaviours needed to one day survive in the wild. After recovering and passing quarantine, we will start taking him out for walks in the forest in order to prepare him for a new life in the rainforest. Sun bears are classified as “Vulnerable” to “Endangered” by the IUCN. Human activity continues to threaten sun bear numbers and are pushing them to extinction. Please do not keep sun bears as pets and leave them in the forest to their real life. Thinking about how you can send your LOVE to little Kipaku? Adopting is a great way to give him the life he deserves. Please adopt Kipaku today! He will make your heart melt! Video by Chiew Lin May “The best GIFT you could have given to them was a lifetime of FREEDOM!” Montom released back into the wild on 10th July 2020 after five years of rehabilitation at Bornean Sun Bear Conservation Centre (BSBCC). This is wonderful and really makes us know that he deserves it! We wish him the very best with his new freedom of life in the wild! Text by Seng Yen Wah Photos by Chiew Lin May, Tee Thye Lim & Seng Yen Wah Wild is life for all the wild animals. However, the pet trade is one of the reasons that has been constantly threatening their lives. The animals captured from the wild illegally to supply the demand for exotic pets. Most of the bears in BSBCC had been kept as house pets before being sent here. They were kept in a cold, empty and hard cage from a young age. This is before they even had a chance to realize that it was not a natural habitat for them. They never knew their natural habitat is the forest if they were kept in a cage. Therefore, the mission of BSBCC is to rehabilitate and to reintroduce them into the forest environment. After the release of Kitud , Boboi and Tan-Tan in April 2019 and now one year later, BSBCC team is delighted to share with you that we have released Montom, an six years old adult male bear in the wild on the 10th of July 2020! Montom is a beautiful name that means black in the local language, Dusun. Montom was rescued from Kampung Melangkap, Kota Marudu on the 18th of January 2015 and came to BSBCC on the 21st of January 2015. Montom’s story began on a day when there was a dog chasing away a mother bear and the mother bear left a cub behind. The cub is known as Montom now. After that, he was taken and kept as a pet in a chicken wire mesh cage and fed with human food for a year. After five years of rehabilitation, Montom has developed excellent forest survival skills. Montom is an explorer. He enjoys every moment in the forest. He loves to dig. His shiny black fur is usually coated in a dull brown colour after a whole day of digging. Climbing is one of his favourite forest activities as well. He loves to rest on a tree and let the sunlight shines upon him. He never gets bored in the forest! Montom always surprises us with his potential. He has proven that he is ready to be reintroduced into the wild! On the 9th of July 2020, our veterinarian, Dr. Yeoh Boon Nie, conducted a final check-up on Montom. After the check-up, we moved him to a translocation cage. Keepers were closely monitoring him during his recovery from the sedation. At 4.55 in the evening, the team was getting ready for loading up the translocation cage. This time, we decided to release Montom in the forest at the northern part of Sabah. The planted forest operates by Forest Solutions Malaysia (FSM) of Asian Forestry Company Sabah (AFCS). And hence, we have appreciated the help of FSM in this operation. At 5.05 pm, the bear release team and Montom departed, and they were on the road for an eight-hour journey. It was a long night! After the eight-hour journey, the team and Montom arrived at the northern part of Sabah and met with the team from FSM. Due to one of our’s car condition is not suitable to go to the off-road, we swap the cage to another vehicle. Then, our release team and FSM team departed together to the release site with a four-hour off-road journey. This release operation is more challenging than any of other release operations ever! The FR is mostly hilly with steep slopes and ridges. However, it’s significance to give Montom a second chance of freedom. When we arrived at the site, the sky is still dark. Montom looked mostly calm in the cage. Maybe he knows today is the day he could be free in the forest! He had been waiting for this moment for too long! The sky is slowly turning blue. The weather is good. Before opening the door, the team made all the final preparations and site inspections. Montom, soon you will enjoy the freedom of your true home where you are originally from. Once the door opened at 6.18 am, he ran straight into the forest and finally disappeared in the woods. We shed our happy tears for him. Montom is finally free! He is finally home! We hope he finds his happiness and enjoys the adventure in the wild. His movement will be monitored by the BSBCC team all the time. Be wild and be happy, Montom. The BSBCC team would like to say thank you to the Sabah Forestry Department, the Sabah Wildlife Department, the FSM team and everyone who has given us support and assistance. If you would like to provide us with any support, you can visit our website to get more information. Your help will allow us to sustain our efforts in making a difference for the sun bears’ wellbeing. Sun bears belongs to the forest! Please save the sun bears and let them be happily wild in the wild. Wild is life! Video by Chiew Lin May “Unique chest mark!” “Unique as our fingerprints!” Video by Chiew Lin May Precious little Bintang had been torn from her mother by a poacher. It is a tragedy to lose sun bears from the wild. Sun bears are protected species by both national and international laws. Watch Bintang rescue and start to explore her new home - it is a delight to see how brave she is. She is learning and loves the forest world. She looks towards a brighter future. Just look at how happy and healthy she is now! Please share her story! Text by Vincent Chin Yung Fook Photos by Vincent Chin Yung Fook & BSBCC Hi, my name is Vincent Chin Yung Fook. I am 23 years old and I am from Papar, Sabah. Time spent interning at Bornean Sun Bear Conservation Centre (BSBCC) for two and a half months was just too precious. Before I made the decision to have my internship here at BSBCC, I discovered this place through my senior. I was really eager to know and learn how an organisation rescues an animal, rehabilitates and releases them back to the wild in the first place. So, I signed up here for my internship. During these few months, I have prepared hundreds of kilos of fruits and vegetables, cleaned a lot of cages, and made many types of enrichments for the bears. One of my favourite moments here was observing a bear. I was given a chance to observe the fence training of the bears and the behaviours of the bear. Through this observation, I have learnt a lot about sun bears. My favourite bear in BSBCC is Chin. I like her because she’s cute and of course, she has the same name as me. There are many different staff at BSBCC. Some are serious while working whilst some are funny and playful. I had never get bored working with them. For the Björn Hala’s (name of the place I stayed during my internship) people, I really appreciate the time we laughed together, played games, did karaoke, and watched movies. To my funniest buddy, Jeniur, I would like to say thanks for having my back. He taught me a lot of stuff, sharing his knowledge and his experiences of working in the wild. In short, this internship has been an excellent and rewarding experience, and I really enjoyed myself throughout my sixteen weeks of this training. Working with different staff just gave me more experiences as different staff have different ways of doing their jobs. I also learned a lot by asking a lot of questions about their work experiences. Not only gaining experience and knowledge about the conservation of sun bears, but the staff also taught me how to handle and communicate with visitors. It was difficult at the start as it was my first time working here in the bear house. I never thought that taking care of wildlife was a very energy consuming job. However, the struggle was nothing when compared to the positive values and experiences that I have learnt through this internship. Another obstacle which limited my time and experiences was the outbreak of disease, Covid-19. Although my internship period at BSBCC has ended, I will not forget about the kindness of the staff, the knowledge that they shared, and the lovely bears. I really appreciate and am thankful for the time that I have spent here working with bears. |
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