Bornean Sun Bear Conservation Centre

Text by Chiew Lin May
Photo by Gloria Ganang and Chiew Lin May

Climbing is a skill most often associated with primates, but sun bears are also arboreal. They often climb trees in order to forage for food, protect themselves from predators or to rest and sleep on the branches. Wong Siew Te, our BSBCC’s CEO and Founder refers to sun bears as “forest engineers” because sun bears can climb trees and dig into beehives at the top of the canopy to get honey. The empty and abandoned beehive then becomes an important new habitat site for other animals such as hornbills.

A 8 months old sun bear cub, Damai has explore the forest and is very curious of the many new and exciting things that surround her. She is a very good at climbing trees. Every time we walk her in the Kabili-Sepilok Forest Reserve Sabah, she practices how to climb trees or liana (long-stemmed, woody vines). When in the tree she spends her time digging in search of insects and playing or resting in the tree anopy, just like a wild sun bear would ! Once she started climbing the trees, she will keep climb higher up of the tree and did not bother us. Now Damai can climb more than 5 meters high !!

Sun bear cub, Damai learns her tree climbing skills in the forest.

You may wonder what is it that makes Damai such a good climber? Many of the sun bears features are adapted for a tree – dwelling lifestyle. She has extremely long, sharp and curved claws that are perfectly adapted for climbing trees. Inside the sun bears claw have a piece of bone that gives strength to the sun bear when climbing. Her claws help her to get a grip on the tree bark and she uses her powerful claws, limbs and padded feet to go up tree. She can also climb down from tall trees supported by her claws. As she climbs up and down the trees, her muscles continue to grow stronger!! Thus, the presence of a sun bear can be detected by their characteristic claw marks on the bark of trees. The sun bears small body size and their ability to rotate their front limbs just like a primate also assists them to climb. Amazing, indeed!

Look at her long sickle-shaped claws that help in climbing !!

Hugging the tree with her front limbs also assists in tree climbing.

Damai is very playful and adorable.

Damai climbs the vine and hangs upside down to lick ants.

Damai found a comfortable liana to relax on.

Awesome!! Damai climbs so high and then tries to break twigs.

This is Damai’s claw mark found on one of the wood-feeding termite tree.

Text by Gloria Ganang

I always consider it a great privilege as well as an amazing experience to walk a sun bear cub in the forest. BSBCC’s CEO and Founder, Wong Siew Te trains his staff, including myself to walk sun bear cubs in the forest. Sun bears usually spend their first 2-3 years with their mother learning survival skills before they eventually travel solitarily in the forest. Unfortunately for little Damai, she have to rely on humans to learn these skills. Here at BSBCC, Damai gets to use the adjacent forest reserve to develop her skills and get her natural instinct stimulated.

Day 2: Wong and I walking Damai out to the forest
Photo by Dawn Serene Tukalan

It has been more than 3 months now since Damai first went out to the forest. She would follow us around like a shadow for her first few days. We use to lead her to decaying stumps or logs where she’ll dig and bite them into pieces.  She would often find termite larvae and feast on them as much as she could. She sometimes gets bigger rewards such as beetles, beetle larvae and millipedes.

Day 4: Digging soil over a tree root
Photo by Ng Wai Pak

Day 6: “I smell yummy termites inside!”
Photo by Dawn Serene Tukalan

It took some time for Damai to climb up high on trees. She started climbing dead stump of 1 – 2 meters height. As soon as she gained confidence to go higher, she went impressively high up to 5 meters from the ground, and kept going higher and higher.

Day 18: Damai 2 meters high from ground
Photo by Gloria Ganang

Damai would initially pick and climb on leaning trees or trees which are wrapped by climbers.This would assist her to carry herself up the tree by grabbing on the climbers. Gradually, she starts spending more time on the trees, breaking twigs, licking ants, grooming herself and sometimes takes naps on the tree. She now can climb on any trees using  her claws  and canine strength.

Day 25: Damai adjusting her position to walk through tree branches
Photo by Dawn Serene Tukalan

Day 27: Damai taking an afternoon nap about 6 meters up the tree
Photo by Gloria Ganang

We sometimes may come across wild animal such as pythons, orang utans, bearded pigs and mouse deer. The loud calls of the Bornean Gibbons, Rhinoceros Hornbills, Racquet-tailed Drongos and even the “barking” sound of geckos often made Damai wary of the nearby animals.  She would be the first one to react to the calls and the sounds of cracking branches or fallen leaves by standing on her hind feet and sniff around. Whenever she felt scared, she would climb up a nearby tree and look down. She would climb down as soon as she felt safe again.

Day 73: Reacting towards the calls of wild animals in the forest
Photo by Gloria Ganang

Generally Damai knows how to get around the forest. She knows where to find her favorite snacks and climb her favorite tree. However, the BSBCC staff still has to observe and guide her to the forest everyday. These are some more photos of Damai’s recent activities in the forest:

Digging on decaying stump
Photo by Gloria Ganang

Damai cracking wood using her little canines
Photo by Gloria Ganang

Feasting on termites from termite mound
Photo by Gloria Ganang

Removing leeches from her paws
Photo by Gloria Ganang

Climb as high as she can
Photo by Gloria Ganang

Text by Gloria Ganang and photo by Siew Te Wong

Koko, a female sun bear yearling has been joining Mary and Debbie (both female sun bear yearlings) for almost a month now. Koko came into the BSBCC earlier this year on the 20^th February. She was transferred to Mary and Debbie’s den a month after her arrival which is after her quarantine period. Although it was a new environment for Koko at the beginning to share dens with other bears, she did very well gradually adjusting herself and getting along with her new mates. Koko connected with Debbie almost instantly during their first encounter with each other. Debbie, being the playful one among them is such an essential work out pal for Koko. They would tease, climb around and play chase with each other besides sharing their enrichment toys.

Debbie and Koko – “This toy is mine!”

Debbie and Koko - Claw versus canine!

It took a while for Mary to familiarize with Koko until they finally mingled. Mary is the less playful one. However, Koko would often try to get her attention by giving her quick bites or taps on her back. This encourages Mary to respond back very quickly from the distraction and they usually would end up rolling around and show each other “who’s boss”!

Mary and Koko – “I’m really getting you this time!”

Having an additional member in the group would keep the yearlings equipped with better and fun daily activities. They also keep each other warm during cold nights and rainy days by staying close to each other inside their artificial nest. We hope for the best for these sun bear yearlings throughout their growing period at the centre. Koko, Mary and Debbie are here because they have been confiscated from individuals who took them away from their natural habitat. They might end up growing up in small cages as house pets or even killed for their body parts. Help our sun bears by spreading the words on their threats!

Text by Gloria Ganang and photos by Tee Thye Lim

It has been 4 days since Ah Bui arrived at the Bornean Sun Bear Conservation Centre (BSBCC). She is one fortunate female bear to be rescued by the Sabah Wildlife Department (SWD) just on time. She was almost sold for the purpose of bear bile. Ah Bui is approximately 2 years old.

We conducted Ah Bui’s physical check up at the BSBCC today. It went on very smoothly with the help from staffs of the SWD and Orangutan Appeal UK vet, Dr. Cinzia Cordella. It took us around 35 minutes to complete the procedures.

Ah Bui was treated with honey before anesthetized for the check up procedure.

Ah Bui has obvious large canine teeth which are due to her previous diet. She used to be fed with chicken before she arrived here.  Her current weight is 25 kg which is perfect for a female bear her age. Her pulse and temperature readings are normal.

Dr. Cinzia taking pulse rate of Ah Bui.

Placing Ah Bui back to her temporary cage

Ah Bui seems to have adapted to a small confined cage indicated through her constant “bending over” behavior when she first arrived at BSBCC.  She has gradually adapted to the current cage which has more space for her to move around. Ah Bui however have to go through a quarantine period for a month before she will mix with other sun bears. She will eventually have a better social life, get access to the forest enclosure and be a wild sun bear again!

Text by Gloria Ganang and Siew Te Wong

Photos by Siew Te Wong

Koko’s quarantine period has ended two weeks ago. A health check on her was performed late last months and the results showed that she is healthy and free from any disease. Today we started the first step of the integration and introduce her to our sun bear cub/yearling group. She was transferred to a new den next to another two sun bear cub/yearling, Mary and Debbie around 11.30 am.

Koko’s original den is located at the opposite site of the hallway from the youngsters. We use two pieces of plywood to make a corridor and lure Koko with honey to her new den. The process was much easier than we thought.

Hi, I am Koko. What's your name?

Debbie was so excited and there were interactions going on between her and Koko. Koko also get pretty excited and displayed a dancing move as she reacted to the company of Debbie from the next cage. However, Mary didn’t show much reaction towards her new neighbor. It might take some time for Mary to get used to an additional bear around her.

Koko seemed pleased with her new transfer, wandering and sniffing around her new cage, checking out the enrichment that was prepared for her.

Best of all, she has now got new friends to interact with after a long period of isolation.

Text and photos by Siew Te Wong

We integrated Debbie the sun bear cub with Mary and Fulung for the first time on March 10th. The entire process started 10 days earlier on Feb 28th when we moved Mary at opposite side of the hall way to the den next to Debbie. Debbie’s reaction toward Mary was very strong, huffing and barking on a defensive way whenever Mary made a move. Lack of sun bear’s communication skills, poor Mary seemed to be confused and do not know what to do except sucking her feet (Mary suckles when she wants to seek comfort). We have to keep the den between Debbie and Mary empty to reduce contact between the two young bears because of Debbie’s reaction.

The next day Debbie seemed to accept Mary’s presence. She did not seem to be defensive nor aggressive and did not bark and huff at Mary like what she did a day before. She just watched Mary on a very curious way. We let Mary entered the middle empty den so that both bears can have contacts through the bars. Immediately Debbie was very interested on Mary, touching and scratching her gently whenever Debbie can reach Mary through the bars. Sometime Mary responded to Debbie by playing with her. However, Debbie was more proactive while Mary just sitting there to suckle her feet without paying much attention to Debbie. The induction between Debbie and Mary seem fine through the bars.

The next step was to move Fulung the yearling male sun bear on March 3rd to join Mary so that three of the sun bear yearling/cubs can be place together as a group. This time Debbie did not react much to the presence of Fulung. She seemed just fine to have Fulung as her neighbor without any conflict or aggression over the following week.

Finally the big day arrived on March 10th, we integrated Debbie with Fulung and Mary. Fulung is about one year and four months old. He is the biggest and oldest among the three bears. Mary is about one year and two months old and Debbie is the youngest, age about 8 month. Here I let the photos speak for themselves:

In order to prevent them from being too excited when first meet, we scattered their fruit snack- pumpkin and banana on that afternoon, on the floor. Just like what we expected, Fulung (left) and Debbie (right) get busy searching and eating their afternoon snack: banana (preferred) first, and pumpkin later. Mary was at the back of the den, checking out Amaco (an old male bear) behind the wall.

After all the banana was gone, play time begun. Like usual, Fulung would is always advantage being a bigger bear. He shows off his dominancy by standing up right on his hind limbs. Debbie, although being the youngest and smallest, never feels threatened by Fulung's size. She displays her jaw and teeth. Her message is clear, "do not mess around with me!"

Debbie on the right now standing up to show off her teeth and claws. She just never gives up quickly!

Mary now joins them. Instead of play fighting, she is more into the remaining fruits. This is a great photo to show the facial expression of Fulung (left) and Debbie (back).

Mary (right) decided to join the party. Fulung (left) let Debbie to bite his neck. With a lot of loose skin, the neck of the sun bear is like the armor of the bear to get closer to their opponent.

Now the three bears are in action together. Although a lot of teeth and claws in these play fight, they are completely harmless to each other.Fulung and Debbie have a lot of interactions at first. Mary is a bit slow by just watching.