The first academic visit to BSBCC Sepilok happened on 1st April 2009 with a group of 6 graduate students from University Putra Malaysia (UPM). These students are interested on conducting various studies on both wild and captive sun bears. The visit marked an important step to link to achieve our goal to conduct more research with universities and other research agencies. Conducting more research on Sun Bears is one of our mission and goal in BSBCC. 
Cheryl Cheah, Wong Wee Nee, Katharine, Tan Hwee Mien, Grace and Helman are the researchers under the UPM’s Sun Bear Research Group which is lead by Professor Abdul Rani Bahaman and Dr. Reuben Sunil Kumar Sharma. The group was founded since 2007 and it aimed to get more comprehensive researches on the only bear species in Malaysia. 
During the 7 days visit, these students were being introduced to various techniques and skills that are useful to study the wild sun bear. Skills were included sun bears signs identification, camera trapping and live trapping. Besides that, they were also showed on the daily operations in our centre.
BSBCC is happy to see there are more researchers interested on our forgotten bear. I am sure with the visit we had built up a stronger relation between UPM and BSBCC. We are looking forward to learn, share information, and help the sun bear together in the coming days.
4 Comments
A very positive development. The more young people studying wildlife and making careers in conservation the better for the planet. Brenton
Yes, that is always the plan. We need more people to study wildlife, especially local students, to understand them better and to raise the awareness and interest to a larger pool of people and will eventually influence the decision making in the government level to truly committee to wildlife and wildlife habitat protection. All of these all eventually benefit ALL- human beings and all other being that share the planet EARTH!
BSBSS is committing to give students more opportunity, to train them in every way that we possibly could, in the field of wildlife conservation, education, research and protection.
Great to see more malaysian student is involve in the field of conservation.
HI Gan, yes, this is what BSBCC is for. We hope to have more Malaysian student involve in sun bear work and conservation works in general.
2 Trackbacks
[...] April, a group of post grad students from University Putra Malaysia (UPM) visited to our centre to learn more about sun bears conservation, research and management. One month later, two UPM vet [...]
[...] with his students on the various aspects of the sun bears’ ecology, genetics, and occupancy. These students visited us at BSBCC in April 2009 to learn more about the sun bears and sun bear rese…. Cheryl’s study is focusing on the home range, habitat use, and activity patterns of the wild [...]