Sun bears love durian!

“Durian” is an unfamiliar word in western world. However, durian is well known by both human and wildlife in Southeast Asia. The name Durian derives from the Malay word “duri” meaning “thorn” together with a suffix-an (for building a noun in Malay), is the king of fruits in this tropical region. Almost all frugivores, omnivores, and even some strict carnivores such as tigers, LOVE durian! Only a small portion of Southeast Asians dislike durian, others, like myself, really like durian!

What make Durain well recognize as the king of fruit is the creamy flesh emits a strong and distinctive odor that make durian lovers regard this pungent smell as fragrant, others find this aroma overpowering and offensive. For all wildlife including sun bears, are big time durian lovers!

The Durian is the fruit of several tree species from the genus Durio, Family Bombacaceae. In the wild, different species of durians have different colors such as deep pink, yellow, and white. Although armed with sharp and pointy thorns, ripe durians split off at the end of the fruits to ease fruit eaters consume their flesh and help disperse their seeds, which is a crucial process for the survival of the tree species.

Sun bears are important seed dispersers for durian trees in the forest. They sometime ingest the seeds while eating the flesh of durian. The seeds then pass through their gastrointestinal system and expel out when the bears defecate. Hence, the bears carry their seeds far away from the mother trees that will eventually enhance the survival of the durian seedlings.

These are some video footages of some of the rescued sun bears at BSBCC feeding on durian in our old bear house..

The Next Step- Phase 2 of Bornean Sun Bear Conservation Centre

Every great project in the world starts from a dream. For me, Bornean Sun Bear Conservation Centre was a dream that I dreamed some 6 years ago after seeing so many captive sun bears suffering in small cages and knowing most people were completely naïve and clueless about their plights or anything about this bear. At first it seems like a mission impossible to raise such a huge amount of money for a species that are so little known and the global economic crisis. The key successes to kick start this project in the first place was because of the immense supports from Cynthia Ong and Nancy Abraham from LEAP, and Dr. Laurentius Ambu and Datuk Sam Manan, Directors of Sabah Wildlife Department and Sabah Forestry Department, respectively. Without their help and supports in the first place, this project will not go anywhere.

The next step of the project was to strategize ways to raise fund. Dividing the construction of the centre into 3 phases would speed up the project, at least, we could improve the livelihood of the captive bears without a long waiting to raise the entire fund needed: Phase 1 be the construction of the first Bear House 1 and the 4 forest enclosures; Phase 2 be the construction of visitor gallery, observation platform and renovating the past of existing building as office ; and finally, Phase 3 as the construction of the second Bear House 2 and additional 4 forest enclosures.

After 2 years of planning, fund raising, and constructing, Phase 1 is finally completed on March 2010. The 12 sun bears we had currently will be moved to the new bear house starting on April. This is an exited moment that everyone, including the sun bears, have been long waiting for. For me, this is a very important accomplishment and also the beginning of my new career. For the captive sun bears, the moment when they finally re-united with the forest where they truly belong, means the beginning of a new era for sun bear conservation. From now on, they can re-experience what was long missing in their life: touching the soil, feeling the trees, and getting wet by the tropical rain. In the same time, we could learn more about them, care more about them, and provide more helps to them.

The completion of Phase 1 also means the beginning of Phase 2. Phase 2 hold the key for the success of the entire project because only with the completion of the Phase 2 that we could open the facility for the public and visitors to learn more about sun bear and have more personal experience with them. At the same time, we could also generate revenue from ticketing and collect donation to make our project self sustain and viable.

Again, back to the dream. Now the dream of Phase 1 has completed, and the dream of getting Phase 2 done is just begun.

Thank you everyone for being with us all these time to give hands and supports when we needed most. This project is belongs to all of us who shared the same dream – the dream of providing the unfortunate captive sun bears a better home, the dream of learning more about this little known species, and the dream of helping the sun bears from disappearing from SE Asia.

So, to all sun bear lovers and supporters, this is our plan for Phase 2 of the BSBCC:

Sun Bear Video Blog 5- interview Leslie Small at Taronga Zoo

Dr Audrey Low interviews Lesley Small, ‘Senior Keeper, Carnivores’, at Sydney’s Taronga Park Zoo. Director, Edito

Leslie Small, is a very special animal keeper from Taronga Zoo, Sydney, Australia. She has been taking care of the two sun bears in the zoo for many years. Leslie contacted me about sun bear husbandry questions many years ago and we stay communicated regularly there after. Believe me or not, although years of communication, this is the first time that I see Leslie and hear her voice. However, this is all not important. What is important is Leslie has a special heart for sun bears, the species that she cares for all these years. She has help and tries hard to help us fund raising and help raise awareness about sun bears.

If you are a regular visitor of this wildlife direct blog, you can see Leslie is the one of the very few visitor who donates to our cause in a monthly basis.

Thank you Leslie! I hope I can meet you in person one day and give you many big hugs! r – Howard Jackson.

Sun Bear Video Blog 3

Here is the 3rd part of the Sun Bear sun bear video blog by Audrew and Howard.

Please read more about the story at http://sunbears.wildlifedirect.org/2010/01/31/it-all-started-with-an-email%e2%80%a6/

Soon the rescued sun bears will be in their new home. Next step – save the wild sun bears from extinction. Siew Te Wong and Dr. Audrey Low begin_of_the_skype_highlighting end_of_the_skype_highlighting begin_of_the_skype_highlighting end_of_the_skype_highlighting discuss the upcoming relocation. Exciting times. The culmination of years of work for Wong and so many others. Hope!

You can read more about Howard and Audrey in their blogs at:

http://papayatreelimited.blogspot.com/

http://wildhoopproductions.blogspot.com/

Finally, Phase 1 of BSBCC construction is done!

After 8 months of non-stop of hardwork under hot tropical sun and pouring rainforest’s rain by the construction workers, volunteers, and supervision of the contractors and architects, the first Bear House and the 4 forested enclosures of BSBCC are finally done! This is the first achievement of BSBCC and I would like to thank everyone who has help us in so many ways to raise fund, raise awareness, spread the words of our cause, help us taking care of the bears, and also physically build the bear house and the forest enclosure.

With the completion of Phase 1, we are also entering Phase 2, which, at this point still lack of funding to start the construction. However, the completion of the bear house means a lot to the captive sun bears currently under our care because they can finally have a better living environment with access to natural forest. In addition, with the extra cages, we can start rescue the other captive sun bears across the state and bring them into our care.

It has been 6 years since Dr Sen Nathan and I talking about this project. Six year is a long time for us to come this far and six years is a long time for the bears to wait for the new home. I feel sorry that these bears have to wait for so long for a better home. However, I have tried very hard to make this project come this far, again, thanks to many people, especially Cynthia Ong and Nancy Abraham, who give us a lot of supports and helps.

Without your help, this project would not come this far.

Without your support, the construction of this bear house would not have been completed.

March 22nd is the official “hand back over” day of the buildings from the contractor to BSBCC, the opposite of the “hand over” from us to the contractor to start building some 8 months ago. On this day, BSBCC will move into a new era by helping individual sun bears, and later, expend the helps to their population in the wild and finally the species.

Ladies and gentlemen, I present you the new bear house of BSBCC! The building plan showing Bear House 1 and the 4 forested enclosures.

The perimeter of the forest enclosure is a belian wood and chain link fence, reinforced with electric wire.

The bear house is linked to a 1 ha forest enclosure. Chain link fence was used to divide the enclosure into 4 separate pens for different bear age and sex groups.

A hot-wired training pen is located at one end of the building. This pen will be used to train the bears to stay away from the electric fencing in the forest enclosures.

A food tray holder and stainless steel water container are affixed in each bear cage. A sliding door allows bears to move from cage to cage. The floor is leveled and painted with epoxy paint.

A guillotine door system is also used to allow bears access to the forest enclosures. Bear sleeping basket on the right.

A guillotine door system is used to transfer bears in and out between the translocation cage and the living cages.

There are 20 individual bear cages inside the new bear house. The transparent roof allows natural light. The planned recycled wooden material for the walk way was changed to metal mesh to ensure better hygiene. The walk way is part of the air ventilation for the building.

Bear food preparation area.

Water tanks for direct water and rain water storage. The dome-shaped cement structure (centre) is the biogas digester, which will collect methane gas for cooking bear food.

Gravel road and drainage system in front of the building.

New bear house is built at site of the old rhino pen. Behind is the 1 ha forest enclosure.