Caroline Bellhouse works for Way Out Experiences and is Education and Interpretation Officer for the Borneo Wildlife Volunteer Project. Here is her latest blog for January 2007:


I thought I had better hurry up and tell you what has been happening at Matang as things are moving along so fast in 2007!! We have 5 terrific, hardworking volunteers here this month who jumped straight in to the hard stuff…mixing cement, building paths and constructing a huge climbing structure for Aman our large adult male orang utan. The volunteers had their semi-wild orangutan ‘fix’ on Day 1 when one the rehabilitated orangutans, Miss Ganti (see "Meet the Orangutans" on the main website), decided to turn up and oversee the path building…

So far this month we have:

• Made new blue fire hose hammocks (from money donated by some Australian day visitors); these will be for the bears and/or orangutans to lounge on.
• Built the big resident male, Aman, an enormous new climbing structure, higher than the perimeter walls so now he will be able to catch the breeze on those hot days (ie nearly everyday!). This is specially important because he walls are all concrete and absorb loads of heat.

• Extended the gravel path behind Aman’s enclosure…the rainy season was washing the path away!
• Painted a new den for macaque Matt, with classy jungly pictures, complete with tiger! We will let you know how he likes it.
• Built a new tool shed, just for volunteer equipment, meaning that the clinic were we storing tools is now free of at last.
• Renovated the chicken pen so they now have perches, and fresh food to peck at (thanks James and Lisa!)
• Moved Keith Jnr (our orphan Sambar deer, now about ten months old) into Doris’ (Aman's orangutan daughter) paddock where he is settling into life with Judy and Jacob the adult Sambar deer. He seems very contented in there with lots of space to roam and browse.


• Released a soft shelled turtle!! This was a wonderful moment and more than one (happy) tear was shed as we watched ‘Emma’ burrow into the sandy stream…

Special Visitors:
We have been very lucky to have James from Adelaide Zoo and Lisa from Auckland Zoo staying and focusing all their expertise on improving conditions for the Sun Bears at Matang, some of whom have been held in small cages with nothing to do for many months. James has been welding frantically (see picture) and Lisa is establishing a superb Behavioral Enrichment Programme for all the animals at the centre.


So the schedule now at about 11am is that the volunteers help to prepare tasty, nutritious treats in inventive ways in order to stimulate that animals’ mental and physical faculties! The foods are ‘novel’ which means that they are not in the normal daily diet but are carefully monitored to complement their regular rations.

These days visitors to the Centre are likely to see the bears scratching and licking at huge bucket sized fruity ice blocks, the gibbons and macaques absorbed in removing nuts from plastic bottles plugged with banana leaves or sugar cane, or orangutans busily sorting through Hessian sacks stuffed with grass cuttings, leaves and twigs. The place is a hive of industry for humans and animals alike!!


The volunteers enjoyed an evening at the Natural Frog Pond at Mt Kuba, where they saw, by torchlight, plenty of frogs, spawn and other nocturnal creatures like a snake, scorpion and spiders.

Upcoming Events:
We are all very excited that Rozwan is returning from Zoo Negara (the Malaysian National Zoo in Kuala Lumpur) with five colleagues and they will be involved in renovating the turtle/tortoise pond as well as giving the crocs more sand and stones to dig in.

We are saving for:
• A freezer of our own to make iceblocks and other treats for the animals.
• Aman to have cataract eye surgery. We have a surgeon who can come in May. We need to raise money for flights and equipment and are launching a campaign as I write.

Better go now; take care from Caroline - in the office (just for today!) and Keith and Matt - in Aman’s enclosure, good bye!