A Further Step for Bongkud - Body Health Check

Text and Photos by Tee Thye Lim
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A health check has been performed on Bongkud by Dr. Diana Ramirez from Wildlife Rescue Unit, Sabah Widlife Department (SWD) and Wong on June 26th.

Wong was moving Bongkud out from the cage

Through the health check, we found out that there are some conditions of Bongkud that need to be improved to make sure that she grow healthy under the care of BSBCC.
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Bongkud, the latest recued sun bear who reached BSBCC on 19th June 2012, only weigh 16kg and consider as “underweight” her size.

Roshan & Wai Pak were assisting the health check

Wong checked on the heartbeat of Bongkud while Dr. Diana was checking for her body temperature.

​Bongkud has a new set of permanant teeth and her canines are still erupting

Bongkud's canines still under eruption

Compare to a healthy sun bear, the coat of Bongkud is yellowish, meager, and dried. We suspected this condition is due to malnutrition.

At the same time, her body also has few patches of old wounds and scars on her head and paw. Wong suspected the wounds and scars could resulted from the rubbing against small cage in the previous cage where she grow up.

The wound patch on the right paw of Bongkud probably due to rubbing on cage.

The wound patch on the head of Bongkud

A scar was found on the upper left of her chest mark, which we don’t know the actual cause.

Can you spot the scar?

Rashes were found between her claws. Cream was applied by Dr. Diana on Bongkud’s claw. 

Rashes were found between the claws

Bongkud’s health check took us around 30 minutes to complete.

Wong placed Bongkud back to her temporary cage