Bornean Sun Bear Conservation Centre

Text and video by Chiew Lin May

Tropical rainforest are the sun bear’s main habitat. They are tree lover and can climb extremely well. Many of the features are specifically adapted for a more tree-dwelling lifestyle. Example the long, curved, pointy claws and they can rotate their arm just like primate do. However, sun bear faces many challenges for its survival, including destruction of forests and commercial hunting.

Bornean Sun Bear Conservation Centre  (BSBCC) would like to help and conserve sun bears.Please help us save them.Watch this video to discover what we do know about this amazing and special sun bears in their natural habitat.

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Text and photos by Siew Te Wong

Today as I do my routine walk in the forest enclosure of BSBCC to check on the sun bears, I saw Lawa the female sun bear climb a tree and rest on top of it. It was a dead tree full with lianas. I immediately used the Nokon sponsored D5000 and the 18-55 mm zoom lens to capture these images. Please see these photos or yourself to learn the amazing lifestyles of these bears in the tropical rainforest of Borneo.  If I have a better zoom or telephoto lenses, I am sure I will take better photos. Anybody wanted to sponsor us a longer lens?

Only in Bornean Sun Bear Conservation Centre, you can see sun bear behave like a wild bear.

Only in BSBCC, you can see sun bear climb the tree and sleep on a tree.

Only in BSBCC, you can learn about the sun bear and their forest habitat.

BSBCC aims to conserve sun bear though animal welfare, education, rehabilitation and research.

We are half way there; please help us make it happen.

Please do what you do best to help us.

Please help sun bears.

Please visit http://sunbears.wildlifedirect.org/how-can-you-help-sun-bears/

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It is time for an annual health check for the sun bears in Bornean Sun Bear Conservation Centre. On October 7th and 8th, Dr Diana Ramirez from Wildlife Rescue Unit, Sabah Wildlife Department performed a general health check on 8 of our bears- Susie, Keningau, Takob, Manis, Cerah, Jelita, Lawa and Om. This health check is a routine annual medical checkup for all of our bears to assess health, potential sickness, function of the internal organs, and physical condition.

During the checking, the bears were first being sedated with sedative so that we can handle them safely. Once they were unconscious, Dr Diana took blood samples, give deworming and multivitamin injections, while Elis (senior ranger of SORC), Wai Pak, Roshan and me were busy monitoring TPR (temperatures, pulse rate, and respiration rate), taking body measurements and photos, colleting hair samples (for future DNA studies). This was also a good opportunity to show Roshan, who will start his MSc project studying wild sun bear next year, on the procedures of handling and taking data on the wild sun bear in the future.

The checking and handling procedures went smoothly without any complication. The team took about 30 minutes to complete all the tasks. After that, the sedated bears were placed in their den to recover from the sedative, which usually took an hour or less. We will conduct the medical check on more of our bears in the coming week. Thanks for the hard work for all staff and especially Dr Diana! Gracias!              

Wai Pak and me were working on Susie, an adult female sun bear

Dr Diana took blood sample of the sedated sun bear with Elis's help. I observed.

The next generation of sun bear biologists: Roshan on the left taking measurements of the bear; Wai Pak was the recorder.

This is also a good opportunity to study their chest marking. The pattern of the chest marking is unique to individual, no two bears share the same pattern is what we have learn. Also, these patterns tend to remain the same throughout their life time.

Manis the old female sun bear is having more and more yellow hairs as she gets older. This is an interesting observation because I have heard hunters mentioned about a second "kind" of sun bear in the forest which is not black but yellowish. Is this what they mean?

When compressing the dorsal skin of Manis the sun bear, her loose skin (like a shar-pei dog) folded into several flips and exposed her yellow furs. Now Manis look like a "banded" sun bear!

This is the first time Roshan handed a sun bear. This health check and handling procedure was for sure very benefit to Roshan, a student who will conduct study on sun bear in the wild.

With the detailed instruction from Dr. Diana, Wai Pak also learned during this handling procedure. Here he is giving a multivitamin injection to Jelita the sun bear.

The chest marking of Cerah the sun bear was the most symmetrical among all of our bears. The black dots on the chest patch stay on throughout their life.

Sun bears are the smallest among the 8 living bear species. However, relative to their small size, their canines are largest among these bear species. Here is a close up photo of the canines from Om, a 6 year male sun bear in his prime age. Note the lower right canine was broken. Wild sun bear usually suffered from broken or chipped canines as a result of biting and breaking into hard wood to find bee nest.

Text and photos by Peter Yuen

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

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.

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.

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

smiling sun bear!

The independent women (sun bears la..) of BSBCC – Cerah, Jelita, and Lawa – were let out into a newly secure forest enclosure (Enclosure C) last week . They’ve previously been out into Enclosure D on a regular basis and have all become confident to outdoors. On the 20^th of April we had fixed Enclosure C where the fence were damaged by fallen branches that was much larger and with more new trees, vegetation, and smells for them to discover. 

Enclosure C- fills with big and small trees and thick vegetation- prime sun bear habitat.

Some background knowledge about these three ladies; all sent at different times from Lok Kawi Zoo in Kota Kinabalu. Their ages range from 4-5 years, with Lawa as the dominant one in the group. Cerah and Jelita are the best of friends (which is surprising as bears are usually solitary animals) and absolutely adore each other’s company. 

Lawa pocking her head out of the door while Cerah and Jelita exploring the new forest enclosure.

On Day 1 Cerah and Jelita had gone out happily into this big patch of forest. However Lawa stayed back in the pen – still building up the courage to go out as this was a whole new area. For their 2 o’clock meal of fruits, we had scattered them all over the outdoor enclosure to encourage them to eat out in the forest, where they should, rather than in their pen. This is also done to encourage foraging – a very important skill for a wild bear to have. 

Step by step, Jelita exploring her new forested home.

Jelita and Cerah always hung out side by side with each other.

While Lawa hung around in their pen, Cerah and Jelita decided to be rebels. They didn’t come back in for their 4 o’clock porridge meal, yet decided to keep on exploring outdoors throughout the night! Although this was not planned, it’s actually a great thing as they would be able to find places for themselves to sleep outside, and also have the opportunity to build their own nests. We had left their pen door open for them to come back when they were ready, and sure enough they were sitting there with open arms for their breakfast in the morning. 

Lawa finally step foot on the forest enclosure!

Day 2, 3, 4 and 5 went on pretty much the same except that Cerah and Jelita actually returned for their evening meals rather than staying out all night.  Day 6, Lawa finally stepped foot into the outdoor enclosure at 2pm. All three of the ladies are outside in the wilderness tonight. Hopefully with more observations, they’ll be in the queue to be released out into the wild – for good.

That little block dot in the middile of the photo was Lawa- the Bornean Sun Bear.