Volunteers

January 10^th and ten new volunteers arrive in Kuching after a comfortable night at Singgahsana lodge they eagerly await their first glimpses of Matang Wildlife Centre which is going to be their home for the next month.

There are seven woman at the moment as Alex is unwell in Thailand and will join the group later and two men who all seem very nice. There was a welcome barbeque that helps let everybody get to know each other. The weekend is taken slowly to allow everybody to get over their jet lag. By Monday morning everybody has met the animals knows their way around and are raring to go to work.

Macaquettes

It proves to be an interesting week. A baby macaque named Rocky is brought in. He is very young and needs to be bottle fed, he is wormed and put into cage near another young macaque named Juan that has been with us since the summer. The two of them will be integrated together. Juan insists on Rocky’s milk but that’s okay as he is only young himself and will actually do him good as they get as much pleasure from the sucking action as they do from the milk. These two little monkeys provide hours of entertainment for the volunteers and also spend a lot of time grooming anybody who comes near to them. Volunteers have done a great job enriching their cage with ropes, swings and a hammock.

Also this month saw the release of two of the older Macaquettes into the jungle. Local worker Hilary and volunteer Alex trekked for 2 miles to release them into Kubah National Park.

Live food has been bought from the market and all the macaques have been able to forage for meal worms and they have also been fed live crickets, a local supplier has now been found to supply regular live food. All of the macaques are now given leaves daily to play with and this provides hours of enjoyment. Volunteers have been into the forest to collect fruits and a record is being made of where these fruit trees are so that we can collect them regularly and feed a more natural diet.

Sunbears

A lot of work is being done on the new bear enclosure. Holes have been filled in around the enclosure wall to stop them escaping and drainage has been dug outside around to dry the enclosure out. We hope that they will be released next week. Everybody shares my passion for these bears and are working hard to get everything finished as soon as possible

Leo and I went to the local market to get some grubs for all the bears and the four in quarantine were very interested I would like to make this into a weekly trip and buy enrichment food for all the animals at the centre.The new sunbear enclosure has been finished this month the volunteers have worked so hard the weather in the first two weeks was very hot and humid making the digging of a ditch into a drain back breaking work but with no complaints they went on to filling in holes with cement around the enclosure wall to stop the bears digging their way out. Then two platforms with a dual purpose of shelter underneath and a feeding platform on top were erected in the outside enclosure table like benches were made and put in their night dens for them to sleep. A paint fight ended the hard work when the walls of the night dens were finished off with white paint I think some of the volunteers had more paint on them than the walls but sprits where high as the job was completed

The work has been finished in time for the bears to be comfortably moved at the end of the month a big thank you to everyone the work done was tremendous and has meant we are on schedule for the release.

Orangutans

Mamu, who is now 3 and a half years old and unfortunately her mother’s milk has dried up. She was becoming quite seriously underweight for her age as mum had not been caring for her properly, so the decision was taken by Hillary, who has 18 years experience with the rehabilitation of orangutans, that the best thing to do was to remove her from her mother and introduce her to Ting San. This has worked very well with very little stress shown from mother or baby in fact after two or three days.

Mamu has come on leaps and bounds and the weight gain is visible she enjoys the company of Ting San as they now sleep together or at least they try to sleep after all the play fighting it wont be long before she will be joining Ting San on her daily trips to the forest.

Chiam, Mamus mother was back to playing tug of war games with an old piece of rope with one of the volunteers. She has also been copying the construction workers that are building a new orangutan cage in front of her enclosure by trying to dig her way out. She was covered in mud and thoroughly enjoyed herself.

Ting San continues to progress well with her daily forest trips spending more and more time in the trees, and is now having a very good knowledge of the fruiting trees within her area. She has been integrated with Mamu, who was separated from her mother Chiam, after losing a lot of weight. Ting San and Mamu play together every night in a joint night den and they are both benefiting from this time together.

Doris continues to go into the forest and was happy to follow our local rehabilitator Hillary into the forest. She is also having good enrichment in the forest. Doris has taken her first steps to freedom by being taken most days into the forest to join Ting San at the platform area. On the 14^th January she was taken by Hilary and Guillaume to Sungai Buloh rangers station about a 50 minute walk away she has done this trip several times now and is appears very relaxed. She is still not climbing trees on a regular basis but has attempted climbing on a couple of occasions, she is extremely happy to swing through the man made ropes at the platform often copying Ting San

Husbandry and enrichment has also been a big part of this months accomplishments volunteers have spent a lot of time jet washing Chiam , Ganti’s and Aman’s enclosure and leaves have played a large part in keeping them amused in as near as possible natural way without providing them with toys, they also use the leaves to shelter from the rain and sun.

Contractors have been here all month building a cage for a male orangutan coming to Matang from Bukkitt Merah vey soon. Chiam has enjoyed watching their hard labour and copying their work.

Wild Cats

Volunteers have been giving dried fish and rice balls mixed with tuna they have enjoyed this.

Veterinary Clinic

Three volunteers spent 2 days cleaning and re-organising the unused vet clinic in preparation for when a new vet is employed, all the equipment has been cleaned and itemised and a new computer donated by Way out Experiences has been installed

A very big thank you for to all the volunteers for their hard work this month

Heather Roberts (current volunteer at Matang)

Please visit my websit to find out more: Heathers Borneo Diary

It’s only a quick visit to the tree but it is her first – this is massive progress for an orangutan her age and it’s only her 3^rd day of rehabilitation and visiting the jungle. We were expecting it to be a month before she got this far.

To start off with we had trouble getting Doris to let go of me so the two other keepers, Hilary and Jugah, moved to the second feeding platform to tempt her with coconut…but this is quickly spotted by Ting San.

After an hour of me ignoring her and Jugah calling her we had a break through and Doris touched her first tree. After this Hilary prepared some more bait so we could take this into the trees ourselves. After watching me up a tree for a long time and thinking about it she watches Hilary go up too and then amazingly she climbs a series of ropes up into her first tree and is high off the ground.

She comes back down for reassurance and although only a short visit this progress is huge.

Keep your eye for glimpses of Ting San whose happily plays whilst we tempt Doris.

Watch the videos here:

Or visit our Orangutan Project Channel on YouTube

Leo

Labels: Borneo, great orangutan project, Malaysia, orang utan, Orangutans and Rehabilitation, volunteer

The most exciting thing to happen this month….

…..Doris took the first of several journeys into the jungle!

We’ve started ta snippet of some of the videos we took on the first day to the site

A word of caution before you watch though, don’t be expecting a free Willy or born free moment. Rehabilitation of orangutan is a notoriously labour intensive project; Doris doesn’t make a bolt for the first tree she sees and brachiate smoothly off to freedom….
In fact we’re not even successful in getting her to let go of us. What you’ll see is the very first baby step in getting her out and into the treeline; after 7 years, for Doris, it is an amazingly big one.

What will follow is hopefully weeks rather than months of getting her to acclimatize to what for her is an alien environment and grow in confidence; untill Hillary and Jugah can teach her what she needs to know.

I only found out as we sat on the platform that even as an infant the keepers were never able to get Doris away from the centre & on subsequent attempts we haven’t always been able to get her as far as we did the first time. However from now on every day Doris will be going out and even if to start with it is only for a single minute and a single yard into the jungle as long as in a week’s time we can make it two, rehabilitation is a step closer.

A lot of people have told us in the past that they do not think Doris can be rehabilitated, that it will be too hard, as she’s too old and too human-centric and I’ve always categorically refused to accept this. I’ve never based my rebuttal on scientific expertise or experience (though I pay them close heed) but on something older than science. Anyone that has met me will know I have a bit of a soft spot for Doris and that she was the first orangutan I connected with when I came to Borneo.

I see Doris’ wings and for all the pleasure it brings me to be around her it pains me daily to know that they’ve been prematurely clipped by captivity. With forestry’s finest, Hillary, her lifelong friend, Jugah, and with the continued funding & indefatigable help volunteers bring I would encourage all others equally enraptured with Doris to watch this year’s progress and see if we can’t teach her to fly again.

Personally I was so lucky to have been a part of that first day, we wanted Jugah to take her up as he is to be her mentor, but when they tried the day before and a few times that morning the centre was too busy with visitors or Doris was just too shy to come out.

It was chance that kept me delayed at a meeting all morning and luck in later passing a man on the road selling (expensive) durian. Chance and luck together brought me Alvin and Eddie to that platform to try one last time for the day at a time Doris when was ready to go and I’m honored to have been in her company for this event.

Tempting Doris out of her Enclosure

At the feeding platform

Ting San plays whilst Doris is busy eating

Doris eating a durian

Doris decides to go back to the centre

If you cant see the videos click here

Thank you to all our past volunteers, without who this amazing progress would not have been possible.

Leo

Labels: great orangutan project, orang utan, orangutan diary

New Years Day 2008

Well it may be the end of December and the end of the year; but it’s very much the start of the next stage of the great orangutan project’s endeavours at the Matang Wildlife and Rehabilitation Centre, as we enter phase two of our involvement here.

Before I can talk about what’s new I have to extend our thanks to everyone who made getting this far possible.

The November group of volunteers was Keith & Caroline’s last; I think that every volunteer and visitor that met them will know what an asset they were in assisting the centre to raise animal husbandry standards. They were also the custodians of the project on the ground for us and the face of WOX to our volunteers. In all things the effort and hours they contributed cannot be understated; without them successfully completing the infrastructural phase of the project we would not be able to begin our part in the rehabilitation of animals at MWC.
Thanks also to the Forestry dept, Matt, Wong, Lisa, James, Laurence and Heather for your invaluable help along the way.

Mostly though a tremendous thank you to each and every one of our past volunteers!
It is impossible for me to articulate how interminably grateful we are to you all.
This isn’t a job for any of us; it is an attempt to make a positive difference towards the conservation of endangered species, particularly the orangutan, within Borneo & that’s no small feat.
We undertake this challenge because we believe that there are people like us, who, wanting the same will give their time, money & sweat into making it happen.
There is not a single thing we have done, or will do, that could have been done without you.
Thank you is an understatement.

As for December……..
Well all of the new staffs are settling in very nicely.

One of WOX’s rehabilitation officers Hillary has been taking his charge, Ting San, out to the jungle feeding platforms every day for rehabilitation training and has begun to teach her how to make nests. He and I have begun an entirely natural diet for her (with the addition of milk) & we make up a nest for her in her night-den each evening to return to and familiarize herself with the feeling of sleeping amidst leaves.

We unsuccessfully tried this with our older females; but will need to be a little more inventive as they simply destroyed the ones we made for them.

We were both concerned that Mamu is a little underweight given that she is nearly 3 years old. Chiam stopped producing milk shortly after returning to the centre so we have decided to bottle feed milk formula to her and her daughter as Hillary feels this is the easiest way to start her lactating again and even if it fails it will be extra nutrition for Mamu.
Much easier said than done though as both Chiam and Ganti always try to steal whatever you are giving to Mamu; but we’ve managed to get milk to Mamu each day so far.

We’ve also recruited another experienced orangutan rehabilitator out of his recent retirement to fill the hole left by Hillary’s departure from Semenggoh (our sister sanctuary)

Our volunteer coordinator Alvin has been perhaps the busiest of us all helping me with doing all of the jobs we would normally rely on volunteers to undertake. After he’s fed, cleaned and medicated all of his charges; he’s out in the jungle looking for wild fruits and nesting materials. Then each afternoon we’ve been giving all of the animals their enrichment before preparing the clinic for the new WOX veterinarian.

(Thanks to Marcia from the last two groups for all of your enrichment ideas I’ve tried several & got the papier-mâché, forage mats & seaweed nests to work J You’ll be interested to know that the eldest female pig tail appeared to dominate on the feeds and that we can move/bribe them from one cage to another quite easily. Also the bears & binturong really loved the blood; which we spread around their enclosure or gave in ice blocks)

At the moment we are hiding all of the orangutan & bear feeds either in puzzles or distributed around their enclosures & high on the feeding platforms in order to amuse and make them work for their food; particularly Aman.
As soon as we have more volunteer hands on the ground again we’ll extend that to all of animals.

Alvin has also been helping me and the contractors with the new sun bear rehabilitation night dens; where the welding has been hampered a little by continual rain and recurrently failing electrical supply; but as I write this there is now only the roof left to go. And as Heather rightly said to me today, there are four bears that are going to have a very Happy New Year

A provisional & flexible release plan has been agreed for the deer, and most orangutan Chiam, Ganti, Doris & Mamu and volunteer work for the beginning of next year will be focused on making this happen.
The keepers, Alvin and I have been spending a long time traipsing around the deepest areas of Matang and Kubah & have selected a location that is far enough away from human habitations and the centre to consider suitable for releasing, feeding and monitoring Chiam.
Along with making ready for our new orange arrivals; the first of whom, a 17yr old male, is due in January.

Guillaume & I attended the Hornbill conference for conservation in Sarawak where Francis Gombek (forestry dept) & I presented our rehabilitation plan for all of the sun bears. We’ll put this up on the site for those that are interested in January along with video of their January transfer and the beginning of the rehabilitation training.

I spent four days over Christmas in the deep jungles of Batang Ai (the long term full wild release site for orangutan successfully rehabilitated at Matang) & received a wonderful present from one of the local Iban communities we work with; when they formally agreed with WOX to no longer hunt any animals for food, apart from the wild boar.

Mr Jugah (who many volunteers may know as Apai) also retired from the forestry department at the end of this year. Since he hand-reared Chiam, Ganti, Doris & most of the orangutans MWC have previously released; we felt that we needed his experience and animal relationships a little bit longer (At least until we have released & integrated Chiam & Ganti as he’s the only person who can safely handle them right now)
So WOX have made him an offer he can’t refuse and taken him on as our third rehabilitation officer. His job with us at the moment is to concentrate solely on Doris and throughout the next 6 months he’ll continue to take her out to the feeding platforms every day for as long as we can keep her there.

One last thank you to almost two years of volunteers; you all brought funding in order for us to be here and provide animals like Aman and Doris with opportunities, you brought your energy to mix cement or lay down boardwalk & brick in tropical heat.

Most of all though you brought the animals, the staff & this centre your love and that is what you bring best.

Happy New Year

Leo and all at Matang

Labels: great orangutan project, Malaysia, matang wildlife centre, orang utan, Orangutans and Rehabilitation, sunbears