February Floods and Drought!

After a lovely relaxing week in Singapore it was straight back into the Jungle for me. I was back into banteng duty with one of the Malaysian workers, Siti. Despite a very dry first few days in the jungle the weather soon turned wet and stormy, changing the quiet stream below the house into a raging river and stranding us in the house for 48 hours! The roads became streams and the metal roof of the house a giant drum, thank goodness for earplugs!

At the end of February I spent a week in town with Naomi and Jo, during this time we visited the Sen Bear and Orangutan rehabilitation centres in Sepilok. The centres rescue Orangutans and Sunbears that have been kept illegally as pets across Sabah and then teaches them the skills that they need to survive in the wild before reintroducing them into protected forests. Sun bears are the smallest bears in the world and are black with patch of white under their chin, they are kept illegally for their bile and usually confined to tiny cages where they can’t move around. At the centre they a free to roam large fenced off areas, mainly out of the public’s view. In the orang-utan centre they have a walkway through the forest where the oldest orang-utans live and they also have a viewing platform next to the forest feeding area, we timed our visit with the afternoon feed so we managed to see six of the orang-utans up close. The young orang-utans that are rescued are taught life skills in a small jungle nursery and where the carers teach them to climb and build nest, this is vital if they are going to be released as orang-utans build a fresh nest to sleep in every night. After this they are moved into the large forest area where they can practice their skills and learn to find their own food before they are released. It was really nice to actually see Sun Bears and Orangutans close up after spending so many months only seeing pictures of them on our camera traps.

After a week in town Naomi and I went back into the jungle while the Malaysian workers took their holiday. Unfortunately the water pump at the house had broken so all washing had to be done in the river, thankfully the river level was low again, but no rain for 2 weeks had nearly caused the flow to stop completely by the time we left the forest. We filled tanks of water for the toilets and doing the washing up in the house but we showered and washed our clothes in the river, not as bad as it sounds on nice hot days! Although Naomi got a bit burnt having a shower on the first day when we went to the river!

Washing my hair in the River

Clothes washing time

March 4^th meant only one thing- Pancakes! As Naomi and I were in the jungle we had to improvise slightly, so using the wok we made Malaysian style pancakes with flour and water. As we were on our own at the house for the day and pancake day in the UK is always freezing, we decided to eat them in our bikinis and sarongs.

After a week in the forest I was meant to go on expedition but a problem with the car put our plans on halt so Naomi and I swapped with the boys and headed back to town to get some more work done on our projects.

My placement project is on banteng forage so over the past few months I have started collecting plant photographs and specimens from banteng foraging sites in order to try and identify the forage of banteng.  I have also been looking at past camera trap pictures to assess the foraging behaviour of banteng between the different forest reserves we have visited. This project will hopefully give some baseline data on the banteng’s forage, which will be useful to the future conservation of the species and of the habitats where they are found. 

Me out walking one day on an old road used when the forest was logged.