TIGER VS DOMESTIC CATS

This will be my first post for this BlogFest 2010. I want to share a little bit about my trip to Lok Kawi last year. It was my first time visit that wildlife centre and it was really a great moments since so many interesting animals was there. One of my favorite was Tiger. Let me share two photo of Mr. Tiger with you guys before i continue to talk more about them.

He seems to be playing by himself without noticing that i am eying on him.

How cute! He was enjoying himself.

It is a big cat and they act just like cats that we keep as our pets. Look at this photo below.

Sleeping beauty Mr. Tiger Chum. We name him Tiger Chum.

It is just that Big Cat, Tiger is not tame. They are wild animals. If we think of skinning Tiger to get it's nice and pretty fur, better to think twice. 

In Borneo, we don't have Tiger (Panthera tigris). The biggest wild cat that we have here in Borneo is just Clouded Leopard (Neofelis nebulosa). The population of Tiger is in mainland such as Peninsular Malaysia. So, keep this animal where they are and STOP ILLEGAL HUNTING!

Till tomorrow. More to come. :-) 

THE SEA

...........................without end.........................

Family Visit to Taman Tumbina, Bintulu, Sarawak

Taman TUMBINA is one of the mini zoo that located in Bintulu, Sarawak, Malaysian Borneo. There are quite numbers of wild animals keep in this zoo. However, most of it in a very poor condition and even there are breeding in the quarantine area. Such as one family of long -tailed macaque. From the first time i make a visit there until last year, the family has increased where one young born in the small cage where they kept them.

Okay, enough about it because if you want to see what is actually happen there, better to see it yourself. This centre really need a real touch of a zoo keeper or anyone with zoology background. Those animals need hands that really can work on helping them to have a better care. I can not do it because i failed when i become a volunteer at the centre. I have to admit that i can not do my part there.

Saltwater crocodile (Crocodylus porosus) resting in the small pond. I think it was about more than five individuals. The condition is quite bad but lucky to see the crocs is doing well in such a small place. I still remember back in 2006-2007 when i was still working in Bintulu, our department give away two juvenile crocs to this centre and i think both of them was died a year later.

The deer farm is not looking very good too but they still survive. The space is very small for about more than 10 indidviduals. No grass on the ground anymore and my nephews trying to give some green leaves to the animal and they ate it.

I am not sure what type of duck is this but maybe it is domesticated duck. Hahaha..i am no good in identified duck species. I think they didn't display the information about this animal outside the cage.

My nephew really interested looking at this beautiful peacock but the condition of this bird also very poor. You can see the feather is broken. Next picture will shows you.

See....i told you....beautiful in pain. Hmmm......what should i say it really beautiful but....the pretty feather is broken...

This is my story during my family visit to Taman TUMBINA Bintulu last month. Actually i really want to avoid visiting this place because it really make my heart painful to see all the animal are suffering. But this time i have to go and show my little niece and nephews this animals. They never had a chance to see this animal alive. So, that's it!

Conservation & Local Communities

It has been 3 months and 13 days I am working with my new employer with the new work scope. If I reflect back to my first month it was really a struggle for me but now it seems to be a very interesting experienced and I am developing new skills now. I am not good in dealing with the communities and I have to admit that, even though I come from rural village in Sarawak because it will never be the same to work together with the local communities with different cultures and beliefs.

Back to the topic I want to discuss here before I am away too far with my other stories. I will write some more about it later. Conservation! Who is responsible? Where? How? Before this I know for sure that scientist or researcher with different field will working so hard to study about plants and animal or we can say it biodiversity. Study to understand about the biology, ecology and do something about it.

How? By using all the information they will come out with the recommendations on managing and protect this biodiversity. This can be implement at managing level but is it works till the ground level, the communities which are living close to this all living things? In my previous work place we tried so hard to make local people understand that they have to harvest their natural resource in sustainable way. But the problem is even though they are aware of it but they have no choice because of living pressure. So, how far the local communities can work together with the authority or the experts to manage the natural resource and protect the biodiversity? How to make them totally involve where they can become the forest or wildlife ranger? So that the responsibility of conserving the fauna and flora is not burden on the shoulder of authority or experts only but it will become OUR responsibility. No point finger on whose job is it.

Okay, I have to stop right here for now. How it should be done I will share it later. I have fire training going on because we have drought season now. We, the field people have to be prepared before fire attacks us. Will be back soon.

Tagging and Information -- How?

When you walk through the education trails there will be a tag and information about the trees along that trail. For example the local name, family name, genus name or even until the species name.

I just wander what is the best way to give a good information about that trees or herbs? As you can see in the photo above, it only give the local name and family name of that tree. That is the only information that we can get. I am not a good botanist so this is not attractive at all for me so i am not sure if i can identify this tree if i walk inside the forest.

What is the best way then?

What Is In My Mind?

This is the wild animal called Small-toothed Palm Civet (Arctogalidia trivirgata) and it was kept by local people for about two years. The story behind of this little creature kept by local people as a pets is that, it was a juvenile when they found it on the tree that they cut for log and it's mum was dead. So, they bring it home and kept is as a pets. Wild animal as a pets? Hmmm...i prefer to see them in the forest even though it is very difficult to observed them but it was an interesting things to do. Trying to understand their life likes in the forest, in their own home territory, habitat. When we understand more how this animals funtcion in the ecosystem then we will know how to appreciate their existence in the forest. Hmm..what am i mumbling here? I think better to let them in their own space of life.

Domestic animals....cats. I think this is Persian cat, that sold in the market. I am not really bother about domestic animals because they are meant to be pets so we can keep them at home. But, have to take a good care of them. Giving foods, shelter and make sure their are in a good health. They are our responsibility if we decide to have one of them.

See this little dog face? He really want to come out from this cage and asking for an owner. Anybody? Please buy me and give me home. Hmmm...soon it will be.

What Would You Say When You See This?

As i walk through the street i saw this animals using Santa Claus accessories and i am quite surprise saw it. The owner told me that this dog really like to use coutfits and it have several more collections, seems to be for every festive season he have one at least.

He looks sad though in this outfit maybe because it can't moves freely. We can't tell what he feels because animals can't talk but we can see from how it behave. It was walking very slow and it's face is not happy at all.

But when i get closer to it, it want to be friendly. Hmm...pity for this little dog.

Sea Horse in the market?

Now i am not walking in the forest or am swimming in the sea but i am walking on the street and i found this little creature. It is a sea horse and it is supposed to be in the water, in the sea particularly. Hmm..people sell it for medicine and i am not sure for what kind of illness. This is really a lot but i forgot to ask how much they sell it per kilo.

I am not quite sure if this is legal or illegal to be sell openly in the market like this. So, pity for this little creature. I never saw any of it lively in the sea but hopefully when i have a chance to divi in the deep sea i will have a chance to see it alive not dead like this. Very sorry to see things like this.

Biological Diversity

I have a very complicated thought in these few days in understanding this topic. I am doing some reading on related articles includes Magurran (2004). I get through her book a few times and only understand a few days ago. Only now I understand why I need to do sampling. I get the raw data and this data will give me much more information about the communities in that selected areas that have been sampled. Okay, what I have understood?


Biological Diversity - the great variety of life

Biological diversity can be quantified in many different ways and Magurran (2004) has been reviewed so many publication on this term and she define biological diversity as “the variety and abundance of species in a defined unit of study” in her book Measuring Biological Diversity.

The two main factors taken into account when measuring diversity are richness and evenness.

So, different author will define this concept in different ways and sometimes i think it is depends on what field is the person are specialized in. Hmm...so, when i read more publications there will be different ways of they describe it but then i prefer to follow Magurran (2004) because her definition fits my work. This will be great.

THE NEEDS OF CONSERVATION IN BORNEO

The land of Borneo is the third largest island in the world and located at the centre of Maritime Southeast Asia. It’s richness in biodiversity makes it is one of the hot spot centre for the biologist (mammalogist, herpetologist, ornithologist, entomologist, botanist etc) to explore the undiscovered tropical rainforest. I searched information in the web and found some info from Wikipedia and it does provide this information:

There are about 15,000 species of flowering plants with 3,000 species of trees (267 species are dipterocarps), 221 species of terrestrial mammals and 420 species of resident birds in Borneo (MacKinnon et al. 1998). It is also the centre of evolution and radiation of many endemic species of plants and animals.

However, in the past few years, there are more species has been discovered by biologist and I found this article in WWF (http://www.panda.org/index.cfm?uNewsID=89620) websites. I quote a little bit from this article and if to read more go to the sites. This news is in 2006 so it means there is a lot more adding into the Bornean species since now is 2008.

“At least 52 new species of animals and plants have been identified this past year on the island of Borneo, according to scientists.

The discoveries, described in a report compiled by WWF, include 30 unique fish species, two tree frog species, 16 ginger species, three tree species and one large-leafed plant species.

WWF says that these findings further highlight the need to conserve the habitat and species of the world’s third largest island.

As one of the local people of Borneo, Sarawak particularly, I feel it is a wakeup call for our own people to consider and think deeply on the needs of conservation (whatever we have in our forest). Development is a good things to be done because we don’t want to be left behind by the develop country. My personal thought is that, we can’t fight the development but we can HELP the developer (e.g. the leader of the state, country or any other stakeholders that involve in any kind of development – plantations, mills, etc) by working together with them. As far as I know, these developers always claim that NGOs or researcher is against development and always become threat to them to run their projects. Maybe because they don’t know why squirrels are important to the ecology? Or why we need peat swamp forest? I am not good in all of this but we have experts in every field that can help.

Hmm..i am not sure what message that want to share here but my main interests is that I don’t want Sarawak forest to be bulldoze and convert into plantations before we be able to know what we have inside our forest.