UPM Sun Bear Researchers Visit BSBCC Sepilok
The first academic visit to BSBCC Sepilok happened on 1st April 2009 with a group of 6 graduate students from University Putra Malaysia (UPM). These students are interested on conducting various studies on both wild and captive sun bears. The visit marked an important step to link to achieve our goal to conduct more research with universities and other research agencies. Conducting more research on Sun Bears is one of our mission and goal in BSBCC.
Cheryl Cheah, Wong Wee Nee, Katharine, Tan Hwee Mien, Grace and Helman are the researchers under the UPM’s Sun Bear Research Group which is lead by Professor Abdul Rani Bahaman and Dr. Reuben Sunil Kumar Sharma. The group was founded since 2007 and it aimed to get more comprehensive researches on the only bear species in Malaysia.
During the 7 days visit, these students were being introduced to various techniques and skills that are useful to study the wild sun bear. Skills were included sun bears signs identification, camera trapping and live trapping. Besides that, they were also showed on the daily operations in our centre.
BSBCC is happy to see there are more researchers interested on our forgotten bear. I am sure with the visit we had built up a stronger relation between UPM and BSBCC. We are looking forward to learn, share information, and help the sun bear together in the coming days.
