Enriching Lives

Text by Charina Pria
Photos by Sumira Muis, Chiew Lin May & Seng Yen Wah

Do you ever feel like getting an ice cream when the weather is scorching hot outside? Or continuously shake your legs or walk up and down when you’ve got nothing to do? 

Here at the Bornean Sun Bear Conservation Centre (BSBCC), where the weather sometimes hits a summery 31°C, we take in extra care to treat our sun bears with our very own version of ice cream called, “Ice Blocks”, which are various fruits in a block of frozen honey-water, then on other days, we trek into the jungle in search of bamboos, sticks, dead logs, termite mounds or anything that is plausible to be creatively created as a “toy” for the sun bears to stimulate naturalistic behavior. This is important because a sun bear in captivity will tend to pace, and what we call this a stereotypic behavior – A behavior that is equivalent to a human’s shaking of legs or walking up and down for a long period of time, hence why these “toys” are an important management tool in ensuring that these bears are stimulated physiological and psychologically.