Text by Chiew Lin May
Photos by Seng Yen Wah & Chiew Lin May

​On January 10th, 2014 a six month old, male sun bear cub (Rescue No-37), was rescued from a Mini Zoo and Hot Springs in Tawau, South Eastern Sabah. Sunbearo arrived to BSBCC from Lok Kawi Zoo on the 10th of March 2014

Thin and dehydrated. His life at the Tawau Hot Spring was spent in a confinement cage. Like so many other rescued sun bears, his mother had been killed and he had been taken from the forest. Based on his teeth and malnourished appearance, it was likely he was being fed the wrong diet. His weight during the arrival was 11.6kg. Originally he was known as Tan Sri, which was the name of his owner from the Mini Zoo and Hot Spring in Tawau. Sunbearo is a special sun bear cub and has been adopted and re-named by Neways International (Australia) Pty. Huge thanks to the support from Neways International (Australia) Pty, which enables us to protect Sunbearo.
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Sunbearo has a beautiful tiny crescent sun in the shape of a “V” on his chest! 
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​He was placed into quarantine before being introduced to the other cubs of his own age.

He seemed very fragile as his muscles were not strong due to his tiny size, and he was nervous when it came to climbing. The bear care team gives him and his friends a chance to play in their dens. He was given new enrichment toys and a healthy diet. 

​He quickly adapted to his new home where he has become more trusting and relishes every fresh fruit. HONEY is not an exception!!

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​On the 24th of April 2014, Sunbearo and Loki were integrated for the first time. 

​He slowly started to build trust with the bears and learnt that bears can be great friends. Loki, Bintang, Montom, Susie2, Damai and Kala are Sunbearo’s bear play friends. They love playing with each other.

​He enjoys having friends to share freedom experiences with. Slowly, he has put his past behind him and is learning to be a wild bear again.
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A shining start to the day! On the 28th of December 2015, Sunbearo had finally overcome his fear and took his first step out on the forest soil. 

​It is a great pleasure to see the first glimpses of these rescued sun bears stepping out to forest for their first time! Sunbearo sniffed around the tall trees. 

​​He knew that he deserved a better chance to express his natural behavior and learn how to become a wild bear. 

​He is now outside foraging, climbing and enjoying himself. He loves the opportunity and uses all his senses to forage in the soil!

Sun bears are the arboreal bear and spend their time in trees. Sunbearo and Montom will immediately climb up and wrestle on top of the trees. 

​His long, sickle curved claws will help him in climbing trees and scraping off tree barks for termites. 

​He has a strong, close bond with Loki. Sunbearo and Loki can be found loving hanging out and spending time up in the trees, watching everything going on around them.

​After four years of undergoing rehabilitation at our centre, Sunbearo has grown in size, skill and confidence. 

​He is a fussy eater.

​If there are special sweet treats in the enclosure, Sunbearo usually hoovers everything up and licks every last bit of honey without wasting it! Around feeding time at the bear house, he can often be found growling for food. But most of all, he just loves foraging for extra protein.

​In regards to nest building, we have not seen any tree nest building behavior from him. He will stay a while in a nest built by Loki or Damai.

​Sunbearo is doing better and is enjoying life in a natural forest. 

​It is amazing to see a sun bear that was literally suffering from pet trade now looking healthy, free from pain and enjoying life as a sun bear. Sun bears are threatened in Southeast Asia by rapid poaching, illegal wildlife trade and habitat destruction. Please help us fight to free the bears from their major threats. The exploitation of the greed towards this little known bear species must end.

Text by Chiew Lin May
Photos by Azzry Dusain, Tee Thye Lim, Seng Yen Wah and Chiew Lin May

Without the BSBCC, many captive sun bears would still live in small cages without HOPE; without the BSBCC many people in the world still would not know there is a bear species called the sun bear
​– CEO & Founder, Dr. (Hon) Wong Siew Te, D.J.N

​​Poaching, pet trade and loss of habitat continue to pose a MAJOR threat to the survival of sun bears. Mother bears are often killed and their infants are sold in the illegal wildlife pet trade. Sun bears are very similar to humans - they cannot survive on their own without their mothers. It is tragic that sun bears are still being found orphaned. Sun bear populations have declined by more than 30% in the past 30 years, leaving the danger of imminent extinction in the wild a very real possibility.
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Text and photos by Chiew Lin May


On July 30, 2013 Damai, a young sun bear cub, surprised us again. Aside from her quickly developing skills of climbing trees, digging for food, and exploring the forest on her own, she built her first nest today. We are all so inspired by Damai, and her abilities to grow on her own at such a young age.


That morning, around 10:00 am, she began to look very tired, and headed directly towards her favourite tree and climbed right up! Damai has long, sharp, curved claws and sharp teeth which are good for pulling, biting, and breaking off branches. She bends the branches in different ways, depending on how she wants to use them, and builds sitting areas that look much like a bird’s nest. She builds a safe, comfortable nest out of leaves, tree branches, and other material that she finds nearby. Much like the orang-utan, Sun bears spend most of their lives in trees, and place their nests there as well. Nests protect them from predators as well as serve as comfortable, safe places to sleep.  After the nest is complete, she plays happily up in the trees until she is tired, and then sleeps or sunbathes in her newly built nest for the rest of the day.


We do not know where Damai learned her nest building skills, and there are plenty of questions still left to answer. For example, do sun bears choose a specific tree to build their nest in, or are the cubs learning where to build the nest from their mothers? Will they will reuse or rebuild the nest ever? These questions leave a great opportunity to learn more about sun bears and their nest-building behaviours. This is an excellent start for Damai! Bravo, Damai!


Here are the photos shows Damai build the nest.

Have you seen a sun bear building a tree nest? I bet you have NOT!
Many people not even know about sun bear or seen a sun bear, let alone seeing one of them making a nest high on top of the trees.

Here is a rare opportunity of a lifetime to see a radio-collar sun bear building a nest in the rainforest of Borneo.

Don’t blink and please hold your breath until the end of the video.
[kml_flashembed movie="http://www.youtube.com/v/Vs8wrLqWsWM" width="425" height="350" wmode="transparent" /]  

​Tree nest
Sun bears in the wild make nest on tree and sleep on these tree nest like orangutans. However, nest building behavior is more common in forest where human disturbance is higher and large terrestrial predators like tigers, and leopards are presence. It makes sense for sun bears to make such tree nest and sleep on high on tree, some as high as 40 meters (128 feet) because it is much safer and dryer on top of tree. These nests usually consist of a pile of tree branches and twigs that are band over from the surrounding centered at a tree fork that close to the main trunk. The diameter of these tree nests ranges from a 1 to 2 meter. Unlike orangutan nest, sun bear rarely snap branches or break branches close by. I still lack of evident that they reuse these tree nests, and believe that they construct new nest every time they need one because wild sun bears tend to wonder a large range, unless there are important food resources available like a fruiting fig tree in the forest. Under this situation, sun bears tend to hang around the area until the food resource is depleted and they have to move on to forage for food. Although the metal baskets that we provide for our captive bears are very different from the natural nest, these bears still love them because these baskets give them a dry, safe, and cozy bed.

You can read more about the nest building behavior in my earlier blog:

http://www.bsbcc.org.my/bear-talk-blog/part-i-how-do-sun-bears-sleep-in-the-wild​

Like all of us and all animals, sun bears need sleep (What am I talking about? Of course sun bear need sleep!). But, not many people have seen how wild sun bear sleep in the tropical forest. I bet this posting will be an interesting and eye opening for many of you who see this for the first time!
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Tree nest
Sun bears in the wild make nest on tree and sleep on these tree nest like orangutans. However, nest building behavior is more common in forest where human disturbance is higher and large terrestrial predators like tigers, and leopards are presence. It makes sense for sun bears to make such tree nest and sleep on high on tree, some as high as 40 meters (128 feet) because it is much safer and dryer on top of tree. These nests usually consist of a pile of tree branches and twigs that are band over from the surrounding centered at a tree fork that close to the main trunk. The diameter of these tree nests ranges from a 1 to 2 meter. Unlike orangutan nest, sun bear rarely snap branches or break branches close by. I still lack of evident that they reuse these tree nests, and believe that they construct new nest every time then need one because wild sun bears tend to wonder a large range, unless there are important food resources available like a fruiting fig tree in the forest. Under this situation, sun bears tend to hang around the area until the food resource is depleted and they have to move on to forage for food. Although the metal baskets that we provide for our captive bears are very different from the natural nest, these bears still love them because these baskets give them a dry, safe, and cozy bed.