Thank you sis! WE NEED YOUR HELP TO SAVE SUN BEARS! – Bornean Sun Bear Conservation Centre

Thank you sis! WE NEED YOUR HELP TO SAVE SUN BEARS! – Bornean Sun Bear Conservation Centre

By Siew Te Wong

When others asked me what can they do to help sun bears, “Do what you do best!” is always my reply.

My 4th elder sister, Wong Siew Lee, a mother of 4 children, is also a talented and determined artist. She does what she does best to help sun bear – with her ART!

Since I started to set up the Bornean Sun Bear Conservation Centre as a non-profit to conserve sun bears, she has volunteered her time and efforts to help us. Three years ago she donated a painting for auction during our Bear Necessities’ Fundraiser Event to raise fund to build our new bear house and forest enclosure.

Siew Lee's painting, "Let go home" was auctioned at Bear Necessities fund raiser event in 2008

Lately she produced two pieces of artwork for BSBCC: “We need your help!” and “www.sunbears.wildlifedirect.org“.

Below are the statements and concepts of the two artworks in her own words:

ARTIST’S STATEMENT

AIMS

To highlight the plight of Asia’s most threatened species in Borneo, the little known sun bear (Helarctos malayanus).

To realize that there are other creatures sharing our Earth, while we create a sanctuary for our own comfortable lives. We humans, as the most destructive beings, should respect other life form too, as they have an as much of a right to live on this Earth as we do.

Artwork I: WE NEED YOUR HELP!

Mixed media on canvas

(stencils, silkscreen, woodcut, stamping, aerosol paint, transfer, collage of object prints, acrylic)

122cm x 90 cm

2010

CONCEPT

Artwork I: WE NEED YOUR HELP!

SOS from Borneo to the world loud and clear, “ WE NEED YOUR HELP!”.

The rainforest is such a rich habitat for various flora and fauna. On the background, I used brightly coloured leaves (silk screen), transfer of rainforest scenery, acrylic print of leaves (collage of object print) to portray the beauty of the natural rainforest, the home to the world’s smallest bear species. Then comes the captured skinny cub asking for help (transfer and stencil) and the BSBCC logo (transfer), the sun bear’s rescuer. For the main sun bear cub character, the strong contrast of black and white woodcut, which illustrates its outstanding character and captures the focus. A cute image, the sun bear cub is such an adorable creature. That’s why clever businessmen use images of cute bear-bears on children’s T-shirts, toys, cartoons and story books. Little do we realize and educate our children of the pitiful plight of the Sunbear in our country.

After the background layer was done, I put some string (stencil) on top of the canvas and sprayed them with aerosol. The brown mist creates a haunting mood besides bringing out the image of a net, which is used to capture the sun bear for unscrupulous reasons.

Artwork II: www.sunbears.wildlifedirect.org

mixed media on board

(cast paper dimensional print, stencils, aerosol paint, transfer, collage of object prints and wood)

122cm x 90 cm

2010

CONCEPT

Artwork II: www.sunbears.wildlifedirect.org

The fact shows that > 30 percent of sun bear population has declined in the last 30 years. The primary reasons for such declined is due to extensive habitat loss are illegal timber extraction for hardwoods and the clearing and conversion of habitat for plantations. Human destruction of the natural environment has pushed the survival of sun bears to the brink. On top of that sun bears are captured for the illegal pet trade or for their commercial value.

In this artwork, a bear appears in a window of a man’s dwelling. This is abnormal as it is not their natural habitat. The reason is: this bear has been captured. The window is constructed of cast paper from a mould (dimensional cast paper print).

The shape of a tree is cut away from the board and is a metaphor for the disappearing forest. It leaves behind, in agony, fallen dried leaves (acrylic object print); the sad traces of once a prosperous rainforest.

The website of www.sunbears.wildlifedirect.org is the message I would like to convey. Please access the website, educate our children and find out more about our Bornean Sun bear.

==========================================================================

Siew Lee is having her very own solo art show starting Sept. 5th until Sept. 30th. Venue at:
Main Lobby, Balai Berita,
New Straits Times Press (M) Berhad,
31, Jalan Riong, Kuala Lumpur.

Malaysia

Theme: A Matter of Mind

My 3rd elder brother Wong Siew Kok wrote a forward in the handbook of the art show:

Artists are the conscience of society.

Welcome to ‘A Matter of Mind’, a solo exhibition of the artworks of the exciting artist Siew Lee!

To create her art, Siew Lee is first an observer, who sees, with heart, soul and mind. Then she is a thinker – who reflects on her observations, her values, and the larger complexity of life and reality, and synthesizes new thoughts from them. These new thoughts become objects of the mind, which she gives form to, with her choice of art materials and techniques, to become artworks that speak to us.

Siew Lee’s subjects are extensive, covering the sensory experience of being alive and expressing it in colors and emotions, exploring mysticism with religious iconography, giving voice to the Rakyat in political art, presenting our world and her perceptions with an interesting interplay of thought, form, colors and creativity.

Siew Lee’s works are a delight to view, and worth the while to linger on; try to find the thought behind the artwork you see, the thought — ‘the object of the mind’ — that is embedded in the work, invisible to the eye, but visible to the mind.

Siew Lee has exhibited in Europe, Britain, Japan and Malaysia, and her works have been collected by public and private collectors as well, both here and abroad.

I hope you enjoy the show and that it will be an experience for both your eyes and mind!

To Life!

SK Wong

Director

Information Designers

August 7, 2011

Penang, Malaysia

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Thank you sis! WE NEED YOUR HELP TO SAVE SUN BEARS!

A photography visit at BSBCC – Bornean Sun Bear Conservation Centre

A photography visit at BSBCC – Bornean Sun Bear Conservation Centre

Text and photos by Peter Yuen

Original pasted at http://www.peteryuenphotography.com/Blog/BSBCC/18659219_WkvTNS

The Bornean Sun Bear Conservation Centre – August 2011
A visit to the BSBCC. in Sandakan, Malaysia.
Buy prints from the gallery here.
All proceeds go to help Lawa and her friends at the BSBCC.

=======================================================

The bear keeper calls out some Malay names and some little black figures shuffle over to investigate. Cerah, and eventually Jelita and Lawa, emerge from the bushes to come and say hello.

These 3 young ladies were sent to the Bornean Sun Bear Conservation Centre’s fantastic forest habitats where they now spend their days foraging, sleeping and cheerily digging up all the foliage painstakingly planted for them by the team at the BSBCC.

As if on cue, Cerah displays her sun-shaped crest. She is obviously an experienced model and hopes that if she gives the photographer what he wants he’ll leave her alone. Nice try Cerah, but not this time!

The BSBCC now has more than 20 bears, most of whom have been rescued from villages, mini zoos or plantations, many of the bears having been kept as pets in tiny cages for their whole lives.

‘Lawa’ is Malay slang in Sabah for ‘beautiful’, and it’s not hard to see why she was named so. Not as camera shy as her two friends, or maybe just not as sleepy, Lawa braved the relentless afternoon sun to do some exploring and a bit of posing for the camera as well.

The rainforest consists of two main parts: the rain and the forest. Neither of these are great news for a photographer. Narrowly avoiding the afternoon downpour, low light and heavy shadows from the canopy still threatened to waste Lawa’s good looks.

Luckily Lawa didn’t mind venturing into the sunnier parts of her habitat for a few shots, In fact, all of the bears seemed quite curious and had a fleeting interest in the camera before realising it wasn’t food.

smiling sun bear!

Under the watchful eyes of Siew Te Wong and the BSBCC team, the bears are gradually being introduced to their new forest enclosures, 4 in all, as they are made suitable for living in.

Building a forest enclosure is not as simple as putting up a fence; sun bears love to dig under and sun bears love to climb over. The fence can’t be too close to the tall trees in the habitat or the more adventurous chaps might be able to venture out into the wild.

Aside from the dangers they would face if they escaped, including other bears and (of course) mankind, these juveniles are not yet ready to fend for themselves in the forest.

The hope is, however, that one day they will be ready for the wild but this is no easy task and requires a huge amount of resources if it is to be done successfully. In the mean time, to help them remember how to be bears again, things are kept interesting. Project manager Wai Pak Ng is tasked with providing lots of natural enrichment activities in the habitats. Fallen and uprooted trees provide shelter and nesting, the huge vegetation indigenous to the rainforest, as well as newly planted trees, give the bears something to stretch their claws on.

The bears are often a little too good at being bears, and are rotated around the forest enclosures to give the BSBCC team a chance to rebuild the foliage that the bears are so efficient at digging back up.

None of these lazy young girls wanted to climb a tree during my visit, although in that heat I wouldn’t have either. They did however forage a lot. Despite being smaller than your average sun bear, the Bornean sub-species is still quite a large mammal to subsist on windfall and insects. To get enough termites for a full stomach takes time.

Once again the BSBCC team lend a helping hand, hiding fruit and vegetables around the enclosures to encourage their natural foraging behavior. Feeding, housing and providing all the care that these feisty animals need take a lot of effort, as well as a lot of funding.

So let’s help the Bornean sun bears. The more we can raise for these bears, the more can be rescued, the happier these rescues will be in their great new homes and the better the chance they can one day be released back to the wild, where they belong.

To buy prints of these bears, with all proceeds going to the BSBCC, visit the BSBCC visit photo gallery.

For lots more information on sun bears or to donate to help Lawa and her friends, visit the BSBCC website.

Tags: forest enclosure, photography, sun bear

Now everyone can see sun bears in the forest! – Bornean Sun Bear Conservation Centre

Now everyone can see sun bears in the forest! – Bornean Sun Bear Conservation Centre

By: Siew Te Wong

After 4 years of idea developing, planning, and more than 3 years of hard working from many people, I am proud to present you the sun bears that we rescued at Bornean Sun Bear Conservation Centre!

Although not all of our bears are in the forest enclosures, we are working hard to train them so that they can adapt their new life in the forest enclosures soon. These sun bears feed a lot on natural food items such as termites, and ants, in the forest enclosures. Both sightings and scat analysis conformed this observation.

Today I have a great day seeing Cerah, Jelita, and Lawa the sun bears destroying decayed wood to feed on termites, climbing on tree to feed on ants, and digging on soil but do not know what they were after. What I know that they were having a lot of fun, chasing and playing with each other in the dense forest floor!

Thanks to you all and your kind support;

Thanks to all the Bear Action Team volunteers who help us built this and built that;

Thanks to all the husbandry volunteers who help us clean cages, prepare bear food, make enrichments, and take good care of our bears;

Thanks to all the BSBCC staff, especially Wai Pak, and all the LEAP team, Sepilok Orangutan Rehabilitation Centre team, for making the life of our bears better;

Thanks to Sabah Wildlife Department, Sabah Forestry Department, and LEAP to be the partners of this project;

WE DID IT BECAUSE OF YOU!

Finally, thanks to Peter Yuen for helping us took these photos of our bears in the forest enclosure.

Now everyone can see sun bears in the forest!

You can read more Peter’s Yuen photography work and support BSBCC by buying these photos online:

Blog: http://www.peteryuenphotography.com/Blog/BSBCC

Gallery: http://www.peteryuenphotography.com/Animals/The-Sun-Bears-of-Borneo

~ Siew Te Wong, Founder and CEO, Bornean Sun Bear Conservation Centre

Evidence mounting on snared sun bears – Bornean Sun Bear Conservation Centre

Evidence mounting on snared sun bears – Bornean Sun Bear Conservation Centre

By: Siew Te Wong

The three-footed sun bear reported at The Bornean Post recently is not the first of its kind.

THE VICTIM: The three-footed Malayan sun bear. Its injury is consistent with an animal having lost a limb while trying to free itself from a snare. — Photo by WWF-Malaysia/Mark Rayan.

The photo of this three-footed sun bear was captured by camera traps set by WWF Malaysia Team in the forest of Belum-Temengor Forest Reserve, northern West Malaysia. The bear was another victim of snares set to trap wildlife illegally in the forest. All terrestrial animals that roam the forest floor- from pheasants, lizards, pangolins, mouse deer, muntjacs, sambar deer, tigers, leopards, sun bears, tapirs, to elephants, can easily become targets of snares set by poachers in this region.

Snare or “jerat” in local Malay name, is a very common method of catching wildlife in this part of the world. The snares are simple, easy to construct and set, but effective and deadly to any wildlife that comes across its path. Only a piece of wire, cable, nylon rope, or heavy fishing line is needed from the poachers and the rest of the materials are taken from the surrounding to construct a snare: a tree sampling that act as a spring, few twigs as stepping board and triggering device. These snares are set on animal trails, near water wallows, salt licks, and other important wildlife traveling paths to increase successful catch. Sometime the poachers also construct simple but effective “fences” with a few small gaps (doors) where snares are set on these gaps. The fences drive/channel wildlife traveling on the forest floor to the gaps and the deadly snares. These fences often measured hundreds of meters with several dozens to a hundred of snares set on a “snare line” are norm to keen poachers.

Snare fence with a little "door" that funnel terrestrial wildlife into this particular spot with a snare loop set underneath this "door."

Victims of snares typically being killed slowly from injuries at the snare sites, after days of struggling to break free from the snares before the poachers came to check for their captures. Injuries from doing so cause excessive blood loss, broken bones, dehydration, stress, and infection. In some rare cases, other predatory species may prey upon the snared victims for an easy meal. Some animals that were slightly luckier managed to break free from snares by either pulling and twisting the snares with immense force until it was broken (imagine that snares are typically made from steel cable, wire, nylon ropes, and heavy fishing lines, breaking those tough materials are not easy tusk), or, in most cases where the snares failed to break, their caught arm or feet, “broke”. In these cases, the victims deliberately chewed their paws/arm off so that their arm/feet can be freed from the snare and escaped. The escaped victims can either die slowly from these injuries from blood loss and infection, or, their body successfully fought the infection and wounds from the missing feet/arm/leg healed, such as this sun bear featured in this newspaper article.

With more researchers studying wildlife in Southeast Asia recently, we see more and more evidence of sun bears victimized by snares in the forest. This year alone, I have known of five different cases of sun bears being injured by snares. They represent a tip of an iceberg as many of the snared victims were injured and being killed unnoticed.

These sun bears were the survivals of snared victims:

Krau Wildlife Reserve, Pahang, West Malaysia. I was on a field operation to assist a local Malaysia student trapping wild sun bear for a radio-telemetry study on March 2011, we caught this 77 kg male sun bear with a missing front paw. “Beruang kudung” or “the amputated bear” is what the local aborigines called him. The missing paw probably resulted from the bear chewed off his own paw in an attempt to escape from snare. The wound healed. The bear survived! Lucky bear indeed!

Two weeks earlier, the same team caught another male bears with old snared wound on his hind foot, and fresh snared wound on his front foot. This bear was snared at least twice!

Kerinchi National Park, Sumatra. 2011: Sun Bear researcher Wai Ming Wong from Kent University, UK., photographed this three-footed bear from camera trap. The wound on the foot was almost a clean cut like being amputated on a surgical table.

Batang Turu Forest, Sumatra. 2011: Gabriella Frederickson, a well known sun bear biologist, set up camera traps in the forest reserve and took this picture of sun bear with two snare wounds in its right arm. Obviously the bear managed to escape with minor injuries. Will this bear be so lucky the next time when it is snare again?

Belum-Temengor Forest Reserve, Perak, West Malaysia. 2011. WWF-Malaysia team working with tiger photographed this sun bear with missing paw with camera traps.

THE VICTIM: The three-footed Malayan sun bear. Its injury is consistent with an animal having lost a limb while trying to free itself from a snare. — Photo by WWF-Malaysia/Mark Rayan.

Danum Valley Conservation Area, Sabah, Malaysia Borneo. On October 2007, three collage students from Germany who visited Danum Valley Field Center, saw a wild adult sun bear sitting on a open sandy ground beside of the Segama River, and concentrated licking on its arm, without noticing the presence of the students. The students watched the bears quietly and took photos and videos of the bear from the middle of the bridge. About 5 minutes later, the bear seems to pick up some sense from the air, sniffing and then limping away slowly. When the bear change its posture, the students can clearly see the bear’s left arm has a rounded open wound and a rope imbedded, and about a foot long rope was dangling at the other end. The left shoulder of the bear seems awkward, a bit out of place. The bear left the place.

After examined the photos and video clips they took, it seem clearly that the bear has a fresh wound from a snare set by poacher. The material of the snare seem to made from thick fishing lines and snapped off when the bear was pulling hard trying to escape. The struggling to escape seem intense as the rope cut through the bear’s skin, wounded the arm, and dislocate the socket on the left arm and thus the limping and awkward shoulder. The bear has a black sleek coat but emaciated with protruding ribs, hip, and leg bones. I strongly believe that the bear will slowly die from unable to feed properly with the injured arm. Read more about this snared sun bear here.

There is no question that poaching is a big threat of the survival of many wildlife in this region including sun bear. Saving wildlife from the hand of poachers is not just the job for law enforcement agencies but a responsibility for all of us at difference levels in the society. In development countries such as all the range countries of sun bears in SE Asia, enforcement of wildlife protection laws is not a high priority because of limited resources and lack of interest from the authorities. This is why the participations by people ranging from local communities to international NGOs and individual is becoming even more important, if we were to combat poachers and save our wildlife from extinction.

Please report any unlawful poaching and wildlife exploitation activities to the local wildlife authorities. If you have more information about poaching, snaring, and other illegal activities on sun bear, please contact me at wongsiew@hotmail.com or calling +60 16 555 1256.

More readings in poaching and snaring activities here:

We need your help to protect wildlife in Malaysia

Plight of the wild sun bears

Category Archives: poaching

Poachers still ravaging M’sia’s wildlife

Beartrek (Joe Pontecorvo) visited BSBCC – Bornean Sun Bear Conservation Centre

Beartrek (Joe Pontecorvo) visited BSBCC – Bornean Sun Bear Conservation Centre

A sms that I received on the evening of the June 28th sent my excitement to the roof. The text message was from Joe Pontecorvo, the Director and Producer of Beartrek, that he was in Kota Kinabalu and he was on his way to Sandakan to visit me and Cerah the sun bear.

For those of you who do not know BEARTREK, please click here or visit http://wildlifemedia.org/the-movie/watch-clips/.

“BEARTREK is Wildlife Media’s first feature-length film. It takes you on a global motorcycle quest with insatiable adventurer and biologist Chris Morgan. Chris traverses the wildest places on Earth seeking out the rarest bear species and the dedicated people racing to save them from extinction. Movie profits will fund bear conservation, including projects highlighted in the film. Watch the clips below, explore this website, then support wildlife and wild places“

Joe taking photos of Keningau the female sun bear in BSBCC forest enclosure.

Joe is not ordinary film director. He is THE director and producer that produced several wildlife documentaries, BEARTREK and also the latest highly acclaimed PBS Nature documentary, “Bears of The Last Frontier.” In 2007, Joe together with Chris Morgan and their team from the Wildlife Media visited me in Danum Valley when I was conducting a 3 years field work studying wild sun bears and bearded pigs. We completed the filming for the sun bear section for BEARTREK with Chris, who is the host and the narrator of the movie. After almost 4 years since Joe left Borneo, he was back to this part of the world for a new mission. I am so glad to meet him, to catch up with him, and we discussed potential corroboration works for us in the future.

Joe and me beside the BSBCC's forest enclosure

BEARTREK is not just another wildlife documentary about bears. It will be the first wildlife movie that show case the little known sun bear and the plights of their survival on the island of Borneo. It will for sure create a huge positive force to raise awareness and enlighten millions of audiences across the world about the uniqueness, preciousness, and the beautifulness of sun bears that live in the dense tropical rainforest of Borneo. Over the last four years the promos of Beartrek and a tailor-made video of sun bear from Wildlife Media has instrumental the success of several fund raising events for BSBCC. I would like to take this opportunity to thank Joe, Chris and their team in Wildlife Media to making all of these possible.

Thank you guys!

Please read more about BEARTREK:

http://sunbears.wildlifedirect.org/2009/04/19/bellingham-ecologist-makes-bear-documentary-to-save-wild-places/

http://sunbears.wildlifedirect.org/2008/05/18/beartrek-the-movie/

Keningau climbed down from a tree while Lawa the sun bear has been trying to break a coconut for hours.