A volunteer’s story at BSBCC – Bornean Sun Bear Conservation Centre

A volunteer’s story at BSBCC – Bornean Sun Bear Conservation Centre

By Marianne Sim

It was a great privilege to work as a volunteer for the Bornean Sun Bear Conservation Centre (BSBCC) at Sepilok for four weeks (Feb/Mar 2011). I was greeted on arrival at Sandakan airport by the forever smiling Wai Pak Ng, BSBCC Project Manager.

My first day commenced with an induction by the Sun Bear keepers David and Daniel. I was introduced to all 19 Sun Bears, safety procedures were explained and the keepers demonstrated how to perform the work required. I assisted David and Daniel by preparing food, cleaning pens and providing enrichment for the bears. The keepers were a pleasure to work with and my enrichment ideas were welcomed.

As a volunteer you really get to know and recognise the bears individually. They all have different pale orange-yellow markings on their chest and all have their own personality. The youngest bear is around 6 months old and the oldest bear around 16 years old.

I was very impressed with the design of the new bear house. It has a lot of natural light, is well ventilated, easy to clean, and has a well designed feeding/watering system. The outdoor enclosure is a large primary forest area with many tall trees. This allows the bears to exhibit natural bear behaviour e.g. climbing trees, digging, breaking apart rotten logs searching for insects.

The Sun Bear is a ‘vulnerable’ species and could become endangered unless the circumstances threatening its survival improve. Sun Bears are threatened by habitat destruction, conflict with humans, poaching for bear body parts and bear bile used in Chinese medicine and the pet trade. The Sun Bears natural habitat has been destroyed as the land is taken over by palm oil plantations. Palm oil is found in a variety of products on our supermarket shelves including margarine, chocolate, biscuits and soap to name a few. It is important that we all take responsibility for the products we put in our supermarket trolleys and we keep the pressure on governments, manufacturers and supermarkets to improve product labelling so we can make informed choices about the products we purchase. There are many medicinal alternatives to using bear body parts and bear bile in Chinese medicine. Please use these alternatives and end the bears suffering. Sun Bears make very bad pets. Although they appear cute as babies they have long claws, sharp teeth and are very strong. They soon grow up, become difficult to control and end up depressed in confined cages. Their home is the forest and they should never be kept as pets for human entertainment.

I particularly enjoyed observing the bears in their forest enclosure and during their enrichment activities. The youngest bear Natalie, approximately 6 months old, is a joy to observe (http://sunbears.wildlifedirect.org/2011/01/16/update-of-natalie/). Natalie has endless energy, is constantly playing and exhibits natural bear instincts. Natalie has the right qualities to be released back into the wild but in order to do this funds are required to start the rehabilitation process. Staff are required to care and monitor her until she can confidently display all the skills needed to survive in the forest on her own. With your donation (http://www.leapspiral.org/content/support_leap.php) or merchandise purchase (http://www.zazzle.co.uk/gifts?ch=theborneansunbear) the BSBCC will be one step closer to this happening. Funds are also required to build a Sun Bear visitors centre at Sepilok. This will be an important educational facility and gives visitors the opportunity to learn about this charismatic bear species.

While working as a volunteer I observed first hand the hard work, long hours and dedication of Siew Te Wong (CEO and Founder of BSBCC) and Wai Pak (BSBCC Project Manager). They are great ambassadors for the Sun Bear. They are men of integrity and are extremely committed to helping the Sun Bear. I am 100% confident that any donation you make will be wisely utilised and benefit the Sun Bears greatly.

Thank you Wong and Wai Pak for an unforgettable volunteer experience. I feel extremely privileged to have worked with such dedicated people and remarkable animals. I will miss the people and the bears but look forward to coming back and seeing how the bears have developed and progressed to their final destination, their true home, THE FOREST.

Marianne Sim

United Kingdom

Natalie the sun bear cub and Wai Pak (left) encountered Marianne (right) and Paul (middle) who were woring on the enrichment in our old bear house.

Jelita the sun bear climbing a tree in the forest enclosure at BSBCC

Lawa the sun bear peeking through the undergrowth vegetation in BSBCC.

Compassionate Conservation: the holistic approaches of Bornean Sun Bear Conservation Centre to conserve sun bears – Bornean Sun Bear Conservation Centre

Compassionate Conservation: the holistic approaches of Bornean Sun Bear Conservation Centre to conserve sun bears – Bornean Sun Bear Conservation Centre

Last week Wai Pak and I attended the Asia for Animal 2011 Conference in Chengdu, China. Representing Bornean Sun Bear Conservation Centre, we are the only participants from Sabah, and one of the few animal welfare, care, and rescue organizations from Malaysia to attend the biggest event and gathering of the year for animal lovers all over Asian countries. The conference was hosted by Jill Robinson and her team at Animal Asia Foundation. During the conference, I am honored to deliver a talk during the “Compassionate Conservation” session and my talk entitled “The holistic approaches of Bornean Sun Bear Conservation Centre to conserve sun bears in Sabah, Malaysia Borneo.” I am grateful to the organizer of the conference to provide the travel expenses for me to share our experiences working with sun bears with the audience.

The abstract of the talk is as following:

The Bornean Sun Bear Conservation Centre (BSBCC) is being developed in Sabah Malaysian Borneo as rescue, rehabilitation, education, and research centre for the sun bear. In Sabah, these bears continue to be threatened by forest degradation and habitat loss, illegal hunting for bear parts and to protect crops, and poaching to obtain young cubs for the pet trade. As a result of these threats, many young sun bears are living in unnatural and solitary captive conditions throughout Sabah, with no access to outdoor areas. The goal of the new BSBCC is to promote Malayan sun bear conservation by (1) creating the capacity to confiscate, rehabilitate and release suitable orphaned and ex-captive bears back into the wild; (2) providing an improved long-term living environment for captive bears welfare that cannot be released; and (3) educating the public and raising awareness about this little known species through visitor and education outreach programs, and (4) conduct research on both captives and wild sun bears. The BSBCC was established as a non-profit organization in Sabah in 2008. It is a joint project among sun bear researcher Siew Te Wong, Land Empowerment Animals People (LEAP), the Sabah Wildlife Department (SWD) and the Sabah Forestry Department (SFD). Funding for the project is acquired through various grants from funding agencies, individual donations, government supports, and special events. Bear Action Teams (BATs) volunteering program provide the opportunity for locals and international volunteer groups to get involve on husbandry and construction of the facilities. We develop BSBCC from a holistic approach involving multiple levels of people that work toward compassionate conservation where animal welfare, education, research and conservation the species all meet on the same ground. This approach is particular important to conserve threaten species like the sun bears so that maximum conservation outputs can be achieved without wasting the already limited conservation resources in this region.

Beside attending the conference and meeting and networking with everyone. We also visited the AAF’s Chengdu Moon Bear Rescue Centre. It was truly an eye-opening experience for us to see and to learn the day-to-day operations and husbandry of the centre which currently is home to more than 160 moon bears and few brown bears. We are grateful to the centre for letting Wai Pak stay for few more days after the conference to learn more about the day-to-day husbandry and veterinary care of these rescued moon bears. All of the knowledge is crucial to help BSBCC do a better job on caring and managing our rescued sun bears.

Wai Pak and the rescued moon bear in the enclosure

This is a relative size of a moon bear and me! Moon bear is big!

Finally I also visited the Research Base for Giant Panda Breeding in Chengdu to see the third species of bears beside the moon and the brown bears – the black and white bear- Giant Panda! They, of course, is the complete opposite of the little known sun bear because giant panda is THE super star, super celebrity, super worship, super popular and by far THE most well known bear species in the world!

The Panda centre also has many red pandas!

BSBCC’s Facebook fundraiser 2011 a success! (updated) – Bornean Sun Bear Conservation Centre

BSBCC’s Facebook fundraiser 2011 a success! (updated) – Bornean Sun Bear Conservation Centre

Organized by several dedicated volunteers of BSBCC, BSBCC Fundraiser on Facebook has a big success by raising $4152 as I updated this blog on June 17th. Although I cannot join this fundraising event on Facebook (as I was in China attending conference) and thank you personally and immediately as you made your donation, my heart always be with you and thank each of you!

Thank you all for donating to BSBCC!

Thank you all for supporting BSBCC!

Thank you all for helping the sun bears!

Beside thank you, I still want to thank you, especially the BSBCC fund raising committee, Sheri, Wendy, Michele and many others who have work tirelessly and organized this events for the past many months.

The fundraiser team will work out on the winners of the prizes and will send those prizes out in the near future. Please stay tunned!

Thank you!

Cerah enjoying her morning walk in the forest enclosure at BSBCC.

Om the sun bear enjoying his morning snack under the morning tropical sun at BSBCC

A busy day at BSBCC – Bornean Sun Bear Conservation Centre

A busy day at BSBCC – Bornean Sun Bear Conservation Centre

A professional speaker, international trainer, and businessman, Matthias Gelber emerged as worldwide champion in the award for Greenest Person on the Planet by 3rd Whale in Canada in 2008. On June 3rd, Matthias Gelber lead a group of friends visited BSBCC to learn more about sun bears and give a “Green talk” at the centre today. Thank you Matthias and friends to visit us.

At the same time, we also organized a visit for the Rainforest Discovery Centre (RDC)’s Sepilok Junior Rangers to visit us and learn more about the plights of the sun bears. At the end of the day, we all attended Matthias talk on “Going green with the younger generation in Malaysia!”

The entire program started on the evening of the 2nd with my talk on ecology, conservation of sun bear and BSBCC after nice dinner at Forest Edge Lodge.

Matthias and friends visiting the sun bear bears in our new bear house.

Wong showed the visitors our sun bears in the forest enclosure.

One of our rescued sun bear, Cerah came to greed us! Photo credit: Chin Angle

Wai Pak is giving an outdoor lecture to the Sepilok Junior Ranger on sun bears.

Wai Pak showing the claw marks on tree made by sun bears!

Outdoor lecture by Wai Pak.

Matthias given his talk on "How to go Green!"

Groups photo with the Sepilok Junior Rangers and Matthias and friends.

sun bear in our forest enclosure. Photo credit Chin Angle

Making a difference for the Malayan Sun Bear – Bornean Sun Bear Conservation Centre

Making a difference for the M

Making a difference for the Malayan Sun Bear

by

Traffic Southeast Asia

on Monday, June 6, 2011 at 2:10pm

Few people know more about the Malayan Sun Bear than Wong Siew Te, CEO and Founder of the Bornean Sun Bear Conservation Centre. In conjuction with our 12 in Trouble featured creature, he writes this special piece for TRAFFIC Southeast Asia about his life’s work – saving sun bears.

Wong Siew Te and Natalie © BSBCC

In 1994, I was a first-year undergraduate student in US and I’d just started given the oppurtunity to study the ecology of sun bears in Sabah for my M.Sc project. I scoured book after book looking for information on these bears but often ended up disappointed – there really wasn’t very much written about them.

So whenever I was home in Southeast Asia and had a chance, I visited places where captive sun bears could be found: local zoos, mini zoos, menageries, crocodile farms, private collectors, government facilities, etc. What I saw broke my heart. While a handful of zoos had proper facilities, the vast majority of captive sun bears were kept in very poor conditions, small spaces, and facilities were badly managed.

Sun bears are the smallest among the eight living bear species in the world and baby sun bears are by far the cuties baby mammals (at least I think so!). Their small size and cuteness make them attractive to people who mistakenly think they make suitable pets. And these babies aren’t difficult to obtain, no thanks to habitat destruction and poaching.

Though sun bears are protected under wildlife conservation laws in all countries where the bears are found, the lack of interest in enforcing wildlife laws renders them almost non-existent. As a result, sun bears are among the most common large wild mammal kept in captivity in this region.

Sun bears are equipped with long, strong claws and teeth, powerful arms and jaw muscles. In the wild, these features help them get at bee hives or pry open termite nests, decayed wood and hard woods in search of termites, ants, beetles. In short, they are design to destroy. Pet sun bears are cute and harmless only in the first few months of their life. As they grow, they quickly turn into destructive beasts that are impossible to control.

When too difficult to control, pet bears are locked in small metal cages by their owners for the rest of their life. They develop all kinds of abnormal behavior and psychological problems; their claws were surgically removed and canine teeth are filed down to stumps, to reduce damage and danger to owners.

I’ve been urging conservation NGOs and authorities to help captive sun bears for a long time, but a lack of interest, resources, and capacity in these organizations has meant limited action. Sun bears also compete for attention with other more charismatic species of high global conservation interest such as tigers, orangutans, rhinos, and elephants.

I realized that the only way forward was to set up a centre that focused on the conservation, education, rehabilitation, research and welfare of captive sun bears. And that is how the Bornean Sun Bear Conservation Centre (BSBCC) came to fruition in 2008. It was set up in partnership with LEAP, Sabah Wildlife Department, and Sabah Forestry Department, near the Orangutan Rehabilitation Centre in Sepilok in Sabah, Malaysia. BSBCC’s primary goal is to promote Malayan Sun Bear conservation by building capacity to rehabilitate and release suitable orphaned and once captive bears into the wild. It also aims to provide an improved long-term living environment for captive bears that cannot be released, and to raise awareness about this species.

The centre now has 21 bears – orphaned and formerly kept as pets – that live in a new bear house with six state-of-the-art forest enclosures within the Sepilok Forest Reserve. It also has an office, visitor briefing area, and bear holding area. We hope to build an observation platform with a boardwalk for visitors to view sun bears in their natural surroundings. A second bear house with forest enclosures is also being planned for the future to double our rescue efforts. BSBCC is a non-profit organization. The number of bears we can help depends on the funds we can raise. Please visit our blog (

http://sunbears.wildlifedirect.org/

) to learn more about how you can help us save sun bears.

Don’t let the Sun Bear become the forgotten bear.

alayan Sun Bear – Bornean Sun Bear Conservation Centre

Forgotten bear (in Japanese) – Bornean Sun Bear Conservation Centre

Forgotten bear (

Please go to

http://jwc-web.org/news_world/topics.cgi

to read the original posting.

Bornean Sun Bear Conservation Centre

http://sunbears.wildlifedirect.org/

Wong’s note: Thank you Hina Fukuda from Japan Wildlife Center for writing this article and help us promote sun bear and their plights in Japan!

in Japanese) – Bornean Sun Bear Conservation Centre

Bornean Sun Bear Conservation Centre’s blog a success! – Bornean Sun Bear Conservation Centre

Bornean Sun Bear Conservation Centre’s blog a success! – Bornean Sun Bear Conservation Centre

The Bornean Sun Bear Conservation Centre’s blog and website has been up and running for the past three years. We are very grateful to Wildlife Direct who has been very kind host this blog since May of 2008. We also like to thank all of the readers who supported this blogs, made donations at this site, wrote comments and helped us spread the words about our works and words on sun bears.

To date, we have posted 330 blog postings and 1067 comments. On May 2010, we installed a flag counter at this blog to monitor visitors’ activities. The results of this flag counter are truly encouraging. According to the flag counter, there are a total of 50,047 unique visitors from 171 different countries have visited this site over the past year! This site also has been viewed 80,636 time. United States, United Kingdom, and Malaysia are the top three countries with the most unique visitors!

Thank you Wildlife Direct for giving us this opportunity to tell the world about this little known bears. And, most of all, thank you all of you, our dear readers to read our news and help us spread the words and loves on our works to help and save sun bears!