Bornean Sun Bear Conservation Centre

Text and Photos by Chiew Lin May

Sun bear is an arboreal bear. In the wild, let look what Damai doing and spending at  rainforest.

— Digging —

Damai is opportunistic omnivores that feed on termites, ants, beetles and other forest insect.

Damai is digging, foraging and exploring the decayed log.

Damai’s sharp claws and long tongues make her adapt at reaching into termite mounds to locate food.

Damai use her strong strength for turning over logs to get colonial insects.

Decayed wood was one of the type of feeding site for sun bear.

— Playing —

She play with the milipede !!

She likes to breaking the twig and play with the leaves.

Stick holding during play !!

— Climbing —

Damai is a very good in tree climbing.

Damai attempt to climb a variety of trees in search of food, rest or for play.

With naked paws and long curved claws, Damai is well adapted for climbing trees.

Damai learn to find food amd avoid danger from animals or human by climbing trees.

— Grooming —

Damai busy grooming her paw to take off the leeches !! Sometimes the leech will become her meal.

She also will use her long tongue to take out the leeches.

— Resting and Sleeping—

Taking nap time !!

— Alert with stranger sound —

Using her stong sense of smells and hears, Damai will alert surrounding sound of the area.

Every  sun bears  has their own unique patterns of chest mark. No two chest marks is the same like our finger print.

This is Damai’s chest mark

With their forests getting chopped down and their babies sold as pets, we are rapidly losing our endangered sun bears. Bornean Sun Bear Conservation Centre (BSBCC) aims to conserve sun bear through education, research, rehabilitation, and improve welfare for captive orphan sun bears. We need your help to achieve these goals !! And if you care about sun bears, you won’t want to be left out of the fight for their survival. They are depending on you !!

Here we wishing all the teachers  Happy Teachers day !!
And wishing our BSBCC’s CEO & Founder Wong Siew Te  Happy Birthday !!

Text, Photo and Video by Chiew Lin May

A mother sun bear will defend and takes good care to protect her cubs from every disaster. Sun bear cubs depends and stay with their mum for about two years. Damai, the recently born 9 months old sun bear cub was rescued by Sabah Wildlife Department and sent to Bornean Sun Bear Conservation Centre (BSBCC), which became an orphan sun bear cub without her mother’s care. Hence, our BSBCC staffs provide her amount of care. Damai is doing well and had learnt how to survive in these wildlife surroundings. It is difficult to justify how a sun bear will react to sustain survival of its life when encounterring predators. Predators of the sun bears include clouded leopards, reticulated pythons, other bears and humans.

During a walk with Damai in the Kabili – Sepilok Forest Reserve, Sabah, she encounter many “strangers”. Example, macaques, infant orang utan, dog, and various sound from the forest (branches fall sound, birds sound, Bornean Gibbon long call sound, macaques jumping between tree or call sound, another sun bear’s barking sound from BSBCC’s bear house etc.)

What will Damai do and react when encounter with the “strangers”?

Damai will be alert to know where is the sound come from. Then, Damai will stand on hind legs to treaten “strangers” by looking bigger than the “strangers”. Aside from that, Damai will create barking and huffing sound which will frighten the “strangers”. She also will show her sharp claws to their “strangers” to scare them away. Moreover, Damai will climb on trees to escape and continue barking, using barking as weapons. This definitely is a sign of aggressiveness and display a strong warning to the “strangers”!! If the animals do not harm and disturb Damai, she will just let them be there and occupy herself with her digging or foraging.

However, her real mother would have jumped in front of her to protect her from any sorts of danger or harm. This also serves as an important reminder that although sun bear cubs are adorable and cute but they need to face many challenges to survive. Please DO NOT kills their mother and keeps sun bear cubs as your PETS!!

Find out more by watching this short video and please help us spread the words and share this video.

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Text & Photos by Chiew Lin May

An 9 months old female sun bear cub, Damai is an arboreal bear. At the Kabili – Sepilok Forest Reserve,  Damai spend a lot of her time in roaming, foraging, digging and climbing trees. However, Damai will take a rest on the tree and forest floor too. Most of the animals have their daily pattern of resting and activities. Like other animals, Damai also give her brain and body a rest too. Damai will sleep on relax mode.  Sometimes if the weather is too hot, Damai prefer to take a rest on the tree rather than foraging for food.

An accomplished a good climber and a tree- dwelling, Damai has been spending most of her day on tall trees over 7 meters height above the jungle floor. Due to sun bears live in tropical temperatures, they do not hibernate like other bears do, as the warm and humid temperatures allow sun bears to find food all year long.

Sun bear cub will stay close with their mother for a long time. For a sun bear cub like Damai, she will sleep with her mother in the tree cave. It was so beautiful and awesome to watch Damai sleep. When you see her, please remember there are many orphans sun bears that have lost their mothers to poachers. Help save the sun bears!!

Here are couples of photos showed how Damai rest and sleep on the tree and forest floor with difference postures.

Damai loves to lay upon the tree tops when the weather is too hot.

Damai is an arboreal sun bear. She can climb and spend lot of time in the forest canopy.

Take a rest after spend the day in digging decayed wood and termite mound.

Sun bears do not hibernate because they live in such a warm climate.

After finish digging the dead stump, she find a comfortable place to take a nap.

It was so beautiful looking Damai sleep peacefully.

Expression after wake up from nap!! Adorable!

So tired until sitting down rest on forest floor.

Amazing!! She choose a fallen tree to take a nap.

Text and photos by Chiew Lin May

Damai is one of the female sun bear cub rescued by Sabah Wildlife Department that sent to Bornean Sun Bear Conservation Centre (BSBCC). She is now 9 months old. Every time walk her in forest, she is very curious and loves to sniff the around environment, which is what sun bears love to do !! She is doing really well and glad for her! Here are some pictures just tell a story better than words ever can. Please help us spread the words and spread the loves.

Text and photos by Chiew Lin May

On March 13^th 2013, Ah Lun and Julaini stepped foot into the forest for the first time. These 4 sub-adult sun bears are now spending their days roaming, foraging, and digging in the Bornean Sun Bear Conservation Centre (BSBCC) forest enclosure.

Ah Lun and Julaini watch how and wondering why Natalie go out from door.

Ah Lun, female sub-adult sun bear step foot on forest floor. She follow Rungus roaming around the forest enclosure.

Julaini is the last one who confident to step the foot on forest floor.

Now Natalie and Rungus are confidently roaming the forest. Once the door is open both of them will go out immediately. They are enjoying their freedom. They have large trees to climb, decayed wood/logs, soil to dig in, and a natural forest to explore. Through the forest enclosure they look for a comfortable place to take a rest. They are doing well and spending the rest of their days getting used to the sights and sounds of their new environment where they are learning what it takes to live like wild sun bears.

Natalie is an excellent climber, and spends much of her time in trees foraging for her meals, insects, by using her long, sharp claws. Natalie is a great leader. She is very independent and has taught herself how to climb high up in the trees. Additionally, she loves to be outside. Rungus likes to makes a mess by scraping off all the soil or decayed wood she can searching for termites, beetles and other invertebrates. Ah Lun and Julaini surprisingly have shown some confident roaming in the forest enclosure already. Ah Lun prefers to spend her time alone, playing happily in the forest enclosure. It took Julaini a while to come out of his door and take a few steps. He was extremely wary of his new surroundings. He sniffed and foraged around the entire place.

It has been very heart-warming to see them grow in confidence and strength, as they become used to using all four limbs and climbing high up in the trees. All these things encourage natural, wild behaviour. They are all making great progress.

Bornean Sun Bear Conservation Centre (BSBCC) is in a wonderful location for true rehabilitation as the forest has huge trees sun bears love. Seeing this forest dwelling species digging and climbing happily in the forest all day long is extremely motivating.

Here are a couple of photos of Natalie, Rungus, Ah Lun and Julaini roaming, digging and climbing trees at BSBCC forest enclosure.

Natalie, Rungus, Ah Lun and Julaini is happily roaming at forest enclosure.

Natalie, the group leader become an excellent climber.

Natalie loves to spend a lot of their time on trees.

Agile climber, Natalie use her powerful and long claws to climb trees search for food or rest on trees.

Rungus is like to spend time on digging soil and decayed wood foraging for food.

Rungus was keeping an eye out whilst foraging.

Using her long and sharp claws, Ah Lun was busy foraging food from the tree hole.

Ah Lun use canines to chew the dead log.

Julaini likes spend much of the day sunbathing or resting. Sometimes, Ah Lun and Natalie will company and play together with him.

It was hot afternoon, Natalie took rest on the forest floor.

Natalie use long tongues to slurp up the termites or insects.

Rungus and Natalie was grooming each other!!

In the forest, Rungus and Natalie was play together. It is amazing !! They love to explore forest very much.

Keep up to date on Bornean Sun Bear Conservation Centre news by visiting our website www.bsbcc.org.my

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 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 photo by Chiew Lin May

Malayan sun bear (Helartos malayanus) need a diverse tropical rainforest to survive. They are forest dependent species. BSBCC forest enclosure highlight the needs for animals better prepared for living in their natural environment. One of the primary goals of the BSBCC is to rehabilitate and release suitable orphaned and ex-captive bears back into the wild, providing an improved long-term living environment for captive bears that cannot be released.

The BSBCC forest enclosure is an old growth forest with full-grown trees and lianas. Over the past many months, we have observed good progress on Cerah and Jelita display their wild behavior and stand a better chance to freedom in the wild.  They are an arboreal bear species. They spend a lot of their time foraging for food, resting, digging and climbing on tree canopy at BSBCC forest enclosure.

They play a vital role as seed dispersers in their forest ecosystem as when they eat the fruits contain seeds. The seeds will be carried long away from the parent tree or scatter the undigested seeds in their faeces with a way to spread out and grow in new places. The importance of seed dispersal is for the continuation of plant and species life.

Sun bears are opportunistic omnivore. Cerah and Jelita forage by using their claws to dig the decayed wood searching for natural bear food such as termites and beetle larvae. They have to forage a lot each day in order to meet their energy requirement. They are good at skimming through the forest enclosure with their nose and paws to find any kinds of food in the forest. Jelita like to sit on the ground with her body straight up and held the food with her front paws and licked it. They are feeding on fruits both on the ground and in the trees. Sometimes, their black fur makes them not easy to be spotted when they are foraging on the dark forest floor at the forest enclosure.

Cerah the sun bear use her strong jaws and teeth to open coconuts!

Cerah and Jelita enjoying their morning snack.

Decayed wood was the most common type of feeding site for sun bears to search of termites, beetle larvae and earthworms.

Sun bears are good tree climbers because that is where they can find their food.  In the forest enclosure, Cerah and Jelita climb like a wild sun bear. They are excellent climbers and are thought to sleep in trees. It is lucky to saw the interesting behavior of the sun bears climbing up the trees. They usually spend most of their day sleeping and sunbathing on the tree or forest floor in the forest enclosure. After napping, they spend much of the time foraging for food.

Both of them climb like a wild sun bear in the BSBCC forest enclosure.

Jelita rolled her long tongue out when it yawned.

Here are some of photos showed the Cerah and Jelita difference resting/ sleeping postures.

Jelita taking a nap after finish the corn on tree !!

These trees will provide bedding sites for sun bears. Those branches also make a nice place to build a nest for resting or sunbathing during the day. Cerah and Jelita enjoy exploring the natural environment at BSBCC forest enclosure.

A sun bear’s nest found in tree at BSBCC forest enclosure.

Cerah and Jelita enjoy exploring the natural environment at BSBCC forest enclosure. While studies of sun bears in the wild indicate they live solitary existence, most likely due to competition for food but Cerah and Jelita are best pals. They will share food, comfort and protect each other together. Cerah have strong sense of curiosity.  She will stay alert and avoid with presence of human and surrounding sound in the BSBCC forest enclosure. She will quickly climb trees to seek shelter and safety.

BSBCC forest enclosure is a perfect dwelling place that the rescued sun bears can roam freely by day and night. Cerah and Jelita has learned from experience and developed technique in survival skills. Observed them venture and acclimate to life in the forest.  This showed a positive sign of independence and given the sun bears the best chance of survival in the wild. Both of the sun bears are fascinating in the forest enclosure. Watching the change of both of the sun bears grown healthy and adapt well in the forest is undoubtedly one of our greatest pleasures.

Cerah and Jelita like to play together in the forest enclosure.

 Help us spread the words about the forgotten species – the sun bears! Together we can make a difference!!

Join our Facebook page to get the latest news from BSBCC at here
www.facebook.com/sunbear.bsbcc

Text and photos by Siew Te Wong

Sun bears live in dense tropical forests across Southeast Asia. In Peninsula Malaysia, Sumatra and Borneo, the habitat of sun bears is the ever green tropical rainforests. These rainforest are green and lush all year long with multi-layers of canopies that can reach 65 m above the ground. Trees and all sort of plants grow at every corner in the forest. These dense vegetations provide important covers for the wildlife that live in these forests. As a result, wildlife in the tropical rainforest is illusive, rarely seen, and not well known. One of the wildlife found in these forests is the sun bear!

Let me show you how sun bears live in the lowland tropical rainforest of Borneo.

Thanks to Sabah Wildlife Department, Sabah Forestry Depart, LEAP, many funders, supporters, partners, volunteers, BSBCC has started from a big dream to reality.

Please share these photos and feel free to tag yourself and friends!

Thank you, thank you and thank you!  

Photo 1: This is the first photo I wanted to show: a photo of the lowland rainforest of Borneo. The forest has multi-layers canopies, very dense in vegetation. Life is thriving on every corner in this forest. This is the forest enclosure of BSBCC where the sun bears roam freely each day.

Photo 2: Pay attention to the two red circles. They are here for good reason

Photo 3: When I used my zoom lens and zoomed in for a little bit. Do you see what I see? No?

Photo 4: OK, check out the red the red circles again, see it now?

Photo 5: This is what I cropped out from the bottom red circle. Yes, a sun bear!

Photo 6: This is what I cropped out from the top red circle. Another sun bear! This bear is sleeping.

 

Photo 7: I then used my 300mm zoom lens to take another photo. This is what I took

Photo 8: Cropped out from photo 7, nice eh?

Photo 9: A minute later, the bear seemed to see me from a great distant and waked up from her nap.

Photo 10: Cropped out from Photo 9. Really nice!

Photo 11: Zoom in to the bear on the lower circle. She also seems to know that I was photographing her.

Photo 12: Cropped out from Photo 11. She was peeking at me!

Photo 13: Is time for the bear at the lower red circle to take her nap.

Photo 14: Cropped from photo 13. This is how sun bear sleep or nap on tree. Sun bear is a tree loving bear. They love to climb and spend a lot of their time on tree – sleeping, resting, feeding or even playing!
Amazing? Yes, totally!

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/