Volunteer's Diary: Sandakan, Borneo: Day 6 & 7
Sandakan, Borneo: Day 6http://12miles-out.tumblr.com/post/613571038/sandakan-borneo-day-6
By SayLin Ong
We got to try out a new type of enrichment for the bears today. Its a type of arrangement we haven’t seen before back in Night Safari. Simple idea of attaching chains across the dens, but many creative ways in which we could do it. Chains provide an interesting type of support for the bears, although somewhat unnatural in terms of their material. However, I feel its beneficial that the bears get to use a somewhat unstable form of support since nature, with all its limitless creativity, would never provide a completely stable and ‘perfect’ form of support. It was almost comical watching the bears testing how stable the chains were.
Once the bears were used to the chain “hammocks”, they started getting possesive over it, with slight aggression as seen above. And then they got a bit too comfortable….
Its good to see that the bears had more places to rest if they wanted to, instead of just the baskets seen in the background. David also made enrichments of his own, wrapping dog pellets in handkerchieves that could be complement our chain arrangements by hanging them up.
The rest of the day was dedicated to helping WaiPak with his paper work. We have also assigned work to each other: Yuru doing the FAQs for volunteers, especially with regards to medical arrangements before and during the trip. Mark will be using his cool computer skills with Photoshop and the likes to create a scientific information poster. I’ll be trying to come up with husbandry protocols and safety protocols based one what Wai Pak has taught us and according to our own observations. I feel happy that we can offer our help in BSBCC’s Phase 1 of their project. Such preliminary work written down in black and white would be useful for the future.
Did a bit of bird watching before dinner. Its amazing how much I could see just from the house. Imagine how much more I could see if I were less lazy, and actually took a walk around the estate! I’ll do that soon, really. We had a simple home-cooked dinner in the evening, really enjoy the homely feeling with friends. As always, it was followed by a good conversation on wildlife conservation.
