#3 ~ Conquered the Mountain

Well, it has been a while. You wanna be mad? Be mad at me. I am very lazy to write. Lazy to think and lazy of everything about blogging these past few months. Why? Because i am just being LAZY. Lol. Okay. I think this is just the old entry that i suppose to finish it up a few months back. Anyway, let me get it straight to the end of the story and skip the middle part. There is three most exciting experienced when i was up on this mountain and joining this project.

1. Being able to learn from the experts while make a good friend with them. Well, they are nice people to be friend to. Different culture and background doesn't really matters when we have the same passion. NICE!
2. Enjoying the amazing and superb scenery of the mountain, from different angle and view its always majestic. Animals and plants also makes me feel this is the real wonders of God creation! 
3. Meet new friends and making many many friends during the hikes and stay up on the mountain. Its is valuable experienced because Sabahan people is soooo nice and friendly until i made many friends there. I miss them! But the not so good one, i forgot to take photo with them so i can show it to you here.

Okay. That is the conclusion of this trip on conquering the mountain. On the 17th of March, we made it to the top of the mountain before we return to the Kinabalu Park HQ. It is just one of my wish to climb up once again after my first time in September 2000. So, i made it! Enjoy my photos going up to the mountain and some works that we have done up there. Enjoy!!!!

Getting ready to climb up. I am proud that i can bring up
my own backpack. Whoa... it's heavy!

During our stay at Km 4 or Layang-Layang Hut, we met researcher from Japan, Ms. Ayako and her supervisor. She is "Kawaiii"... (^___^)

One of the wild berry that we used to eat after taking our meal.. Its sour but yet delicious.

Myself and our catch at KM2. Sunny but yet still feel the cold!

The mountain guide aka porter to carry our heavy equipment, 120kg up to KM6 or Laban Rata. 

The mesmerizing sunrise up on the Low's Peak. 17th March morning, we made it!

Missy and I up on the top of the Mount Kinabalu!!!!.... 

With Richell, the ranger of Mount Kinabalu. We collecting rubbish on our way down.
To all Climbers, this is an important announcement! PLEASE DON'T THROW RUBBISH WHILE YOU CLIMB UP MOUNT KINABALU. LET'S KEEP THE BEAUTY OF THIS MAJESTIC MOUNTAIN TOGETHER! IT'S OUR DUTY NOT JUST THE KINABALU PARK STAFF! THANK YOU FOR YOUR ATTENTION! (^__^) 

Hoooray!!!!! We made it! With the South Peak as our background!

Contractors, Apis & Guntur. Friends that i made during our stay at KM6 at Maragang Hut. 

Before i end this entry. Enjoy the bonsai like tree on the way to Mountain Torq trail. 

 Till then!!! I have more adventures to share! just be patient and keep visiting me here. Cheers!!!!!!!..... 

#2 ~ The Research Project

What is actually bringing me up on this mountain? Well, allow me to introduce you to a special person that asking me to join her trip. I get to know a very nice lady and she is a great person, Missy Roberts. She is doing her PhD on genetic study with small mammals as her target species mainly treeshrews and squirrels. To be more specific, she is studying the altitudinal difference within a species on Mount Kinabalu and Mount Tambuyukon, Sabah. I met her for the first time during her first visit to Sabah with her supervisor Dr. Jenn during my tenure at Forest Solutions Malaysia S/B (FSM) at Kota Marudu. Getting to know people with same interest and same passion is a blessing to me. Why? Because I can talk anything and share everything about what we think and what we do in the forest.

After quit my job at FSM, I take a break for about two weeks before I join in her research project. Missy and her friend Miguel arrived in Sabah on 19th Feb and stay at Kota Kinabalu for two days before head off to Kinabalu Park at Kundasang on 21st Feb. Missy and I will set a traps at Mount Kinabalu, meanwhile her friend, Miguel with his technician will set up a traps at Mount Tambuyukon at Monggis, another 3 hours drive from Kundasang.

The Tomahawk & Sherman Traps that we use.

This is how we place the traps; under fallen log, on fallen log, beside streams etc etc. 

We will use two different types of traps known as Tomahawk (60 units) and Sherman trap (20 units), so total traps are 80 traps. Since this is the altitudinal study, we will set traps at different altitude across the height of this mountain. 1st altitude at 1,700m a.s.l at Kinabalu Park (KP) headquarters, 2,200m a.s.l at KM2, 2,700m a.s.l at KM4 and 3,200m a.s.l at KM6.

So this is a little bit info about the research which I may not share the details here. I will tell you more stories about my experience when I am up on the mountain in my next post. Stay Tune! Till then!

Nature Activity - Observation

From 28th Feb until 1st March, i was away to our camp @ conservation area. I was so excited bringing along all my field guide books and binocular with high expectation on a lot of findings. It is not bad to put high hope but when things ended not the way i hope, i am a bit disappointed with myself.

I only observed and identified these five species of birds and squirrels. A lot of bird species was unidentified. Two years is a big gap and i really need to get back my memories and practice more of my observation skills. Here is my observation during this visit:
a)      Exilisciurus exilis (Plain Pygmy Squirrel)
b)      Glyphotes simus (Red-bellied Sculptor Squirrel)
c)      Hemiprocne comata (Whiskered Tree-swift)
d)     Orthotomus ruficeps (Ashy Tailorbird)
e)      Stachyris erythroptera (Chestnut-winged Babbler) 


I cant get any good photos of them so here is some of the photos i get from Google search. By the way, i was enjoy observing the squirrels because they are so cute and yet very aggressive on marking their territory. 

Whiskered Treeswift
Photo Credit to Birdwatch.ph

Ashy Tailorbird
Photo credit to Google Image

Chestnut-winged Babbler
Photo Credit to Google Image

Quite an interesting one and still i am not really satisfied with this. hmmmph.... 


Till then!

Birding With My Friend

It was quite a while (almost three years actually), i did not really went for birding. Last weekend my friend asks me to join her doing some field work at Lawas, Sarawak. I was so excited but i am already feel exhausted because that Saturday i was working half day too. However, she success in convincing me to join her for that field work.

We stayed at Murut village, Kg. Munchu, Ulu Merapok. On Sunday, we walk through the village road until we reach the last village named Kg. Jelatung, Ulu Merapok. This village is located only five minutes walk to reach Sipitang - Tenom main road. We have a short conversation with three villagers (one man, two women) in the village. We ask them where we can find Magpie Robin and White-Rumped Shama. These two birds is the bird species that we hunt for. My friend is doing her PhD on this two birds species. So, we need to find information from the villagers (hey! they are more expert than us in term of cathing this birds you know!)...

Along the walk, we did some observation but not so many species. Maybe because most of the area is rubber and palm oil plantation own by the people of these two villages.

Here is my observation list (birds, small mammal and frog):

1. Merops viridis (Blue Throated Bee Eater)
2. Arachnothere longirostra (Little Sipder Hunter)
3. Pycnonotus goiavier (Yellow Vented Bulbul)
4. Copsychus saularis (Marpie Robin)
5. Callosciurus notatus (Plantain Squirrel)
6. Kalophrynus pleurostigma (Rufous-sided Sticky Frog)

That is all i can lists here. Till then!

World’s most endangered otter ‘rediscovered’ in Deramakot

The “rediscovered” hairy-nosed otter (Lutra sumatrana) is photographed by an automated camera trap set up by ConCaSa. — Photo courtesy of Mohamed & Wilting, SWD, SFD.

KOTA KINABALU, July 25 — The world’s most endangered otter species, known as the hairy-nosed otter (Lutra sumatrana), has been “rediscovered” in Deramakot Forest Reserve in Sabah by a team of German and Malaysian researchers.

“This is great news for Sabah and shows once again how unique and fortunate we are in terms of wildlife and nature. In addition, these findings also boost the conservation of this endangered otter internationally as historically this otter was distributed throughout large parts of southeast Asia,” said an elated Sabah Wildlife Department Director, Dr Laurentius Ambu.

The last confirmed record of the hairy-nosed otter in Sabah is a museum specimen collected over a hundred years ago.

“Even over the whole island of Borneo, the last record – a road-kill from Brunei – was 1997, over ten years ago. Therefore it was unknown to scientists if this species can be still found on Borneo,” stated Andreas Wilting, the project leader of the Leibniz Institute for Zoo and Wildlife Research (IZW).

In 2008, IZW initiated the Conservation of Carnivores in Sabah (ConCaSa) project with the collaboration of SWD and Sabah Forestry Department (SFD) to study carnivores such as the Sunda clouded leopard, civets and otters in the state.

The ConCaSa project used automated camera traps that were set up in Deramakot and the surrounding forest reserves during the last two years. As the different otter species look very similar the hairy-nosed otter, pictures had to first be verified by a number of experts before they were published recently by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Species Survival Commission journal.

In addition to capturing camera trap pictures of the endangered hairy-nosed otter, the study also confirmed the presence of five Bornean cat species, as well as 13 other small carnivores such as the Banded civet and the sun bear.

“These results mean that out of 25 known carnivore species in Borneo, our project, together with a Japanese researcher Hiromitsu Samejima, confirmed 20 in Deramakot. This makes Deramakot outstanding for being extremely rich in its diversity of carnivores,” explained Wilting.

Besides the pictures, ConCaSa also obtained the first video footage ever taken of some species, such as the otter civet (Cynogale bennettii).

Since 1997, Deramakot Forest Reserve has been managed by the SFD as a sustainable logged forest with the coveted Forest Stewardship Council certification.

“These findings show that long-term sustainable forest management is of great importance for the protection of some of this country’s most threatened species and of the unique biodiversity of the forests of Borneo,” shared Datuk Sam Mannan the Director of the SFD.

One of the next steps in the conservation of Bornean carnivores is the First Borneo Carnivore Symposium in Kota Kinabalu, in June 2011.

This symposium organised by the SWD, three IUCN/SSC Specialist Groups and the IZW will be a landmark international meeting, bringing together scientists, government agencies and non-governmental organisations (NGO) working on the protection of the Bornean carnivores.

*It is not because this animal is not exist anymore but it is the matter of they are elusive and very difficult to find them. Congrats to the team with this great findings. They are more species yet to be discover or rediscover. It's Nature. 

Tiger Trivia

So many facts about tiger right. Let us have a break first. Here is Tiger Trivia also i extracted from WWF. Quite interesting info here.

• Latin name for tiger is Panthera tigris. The word "panthera" is argued from oriental word means "yellow-white" and "tigris" derived from Greek word which means arrow, as the species can move swiftly even through the dense forest.
• Tiger stripes are individually as unique as human finger prints. There are no identical tigers!
• I you shaved tiger fur, you'll still find stripes in its skin.
• Tiger saliva acts as antiseptic that helps clean its wound.
• Unlike Lion, adult wild tiger is solitary territorial animal, marking their territory by urine and scratch marks on tree trunks.
• A male tiger territory never overlaps with other male's territory, thus tiger needs large unfragmented home range for them to survive.
• A female tiger usually roam around her mother' range.
• Unlike domestic cat, tiger loves water and a great swimmer.
• Adult tiger can eat up to 40kg of food at a time. After a big meal, it may not eat again for 1 or 2 weeks. 
• Tiger is a highly adaptable hunter, their habitat varies from taiga in Russia, grassland in India, to tropical mangrove swamp in Southeast Asia. 

For more info visit WWF website.

Sumatran Tiger (Panthera tigris sumatrae)

Borneo and Sumatra is not that far, so i will talk about Mr. Sumatran Tiger next. What info did i get? Let us read together and i am pretty sure we will know better about Mr. Sumatran Tiger.

• IUCN status: Critically Endangered; CITES: Appendix 1 (international commercial trading is prohibited)
• In Indonesia, the Sumatran tiger is protected by Act No. 5 of 1990 on Conservation of Natural Resources and Ecosystems. 
• The Sumatran tiger (Panthera tigris sumatrae) numbering fewer than 400 individuals in the wild, is found exclusively on the Indonesian island of Sumatra. 
• Is the smallest of all six subspecies, with length of about 2.5m and weight up to 140 kg. 
• The Sumatran tiger has the darkest coat ranging from reddish-yellow to deep orange with black stripes.
• Tiger stripes act as camouflage in the tall weeds and grasses.
• Without natural predators in the wild, human is the foremost threat to tiger existence. Poaching nad habitat fragmentation in Sumatra threatens the endemic Sumatran tiger in its last frontier.
• Human-tiger conflict adds to the problem. As the habitat becomes more fragmented, tiger is forced to go near to human settlement and cause casualities in human and tiger sides alike. 
• Tiger is an umbrella species. The species identified as umbrella species typically have large home range covering multiple habitat types therefore protecting this species indirectly protects the many other species that make up the ecological community of its habitats. 

Okay, this info also i extracted from WWF. This endemic species is critically endangered and its most threats are HUMAN. It will be difficult to find solutions when there is human-tiger conflict occurs. However, experts may have the solutions to make sure win-win situation may apply. Who knows right? More behavioral studies done to get more information about them. Just random ideas from me.

Photo credit to Dave Watts at birdlife.org.

Malayan Tiger (Panthera tigris jacksoni)

For the next posts i will share about the six subspecies of tigers that still alive in this world. Since i am from Malaysia, then i will write about Malayan Tiger first.

• IUCN: Endangered, CITES: Appendix 1 (international commercial trading is prohibited)
• The Malayan tiger (Panthera tigris jacksoni) was only identified as being a separate subspecies from the Indochinese in 2004. (*This subspecies is still new to the science).
• This new subspecies is named after the tiger conservationist Peter Jackson.
• It is estimated that 490 adult individuals exist in the wild.
• Malayan tiger lives in tropical and subtropical moist broadleaf forests of Southern Thailand and Malaysian Peninsula.
• People in Malaysia have special name for tiger, Pak Belang or Datuk Harimau.
• With round pupil and yellow iris, the night vision of tiger is six times better than normal human. Therefore tiger can easily walk in the density of tropical forest.
• These carnivorous mammals instinctively avoid human beings and will only attack people if they are provoked, injured or unable to hunt for their usual food. 
• Tiger has five times the pulling strength of human athlete. 
• Mating seasons happens throughout the year, although it has been suggested that tiger reproduction, in Peninsular Malaysia might have a seasonal peak around November to March.
• In Malaysia, the main tiger-prey species are wild boar, Sambar deer and medium-sized mammals such as Barking deer (muntjak). (*Opss... i maybe wrong about tiger eating small mammals. Hmm.. seems to be tigers only eat until the size of medium-sized mammals). 

All of these info was extracted from WWF. Thanks for this information and hope this will help more of us to know and understand better of Mr. Malayan Tiger.

Photo credit to The Animal Files.com.

Mr. Tiger & Me

Pity and shame on me. Why? Because, actually i didn't know much about tiger. Just to make a confessions here. Since i am living in Borneo, i am not really aware about status of tigers. I was working on small mammals before and i know one of small mammals predator is tiger. But i didn't search more information about tiger. It's habitat, distribution, population status etc. I am aware about WWF efforts on Tiger Conservation but i just don't bother about it so much. Why? Because we don't have Tigers. See, my mind set is so selfish. Okay, enough talking about how insensitive i am.

However, it was great that i browse through Dr. Bala blog and found out about Tiger BlogFest. Since i was committed to participate in this event then i have to find and know more about Mr. Tiger. Let me share what did i find out about them. As i Google through the net, i find these interesting facts about tiger. This article was from WWF but not sure which web site since this was the pdf file of Tiger Facts and Trivia.  Let me see what can i share here.

Based on this info, Tiger (Panthera tigris) divided into nine subspecies ranged widely across Asia, from Turkey in the west to the eastern coast of Russia and to Indonesia in the South. With three extinct subspecies, only six subspecies left in the world. the only proof of Caspian Tiger (Panthera tigris virgata) existence is preserved specimens in museums. Indonesia has lost both Bali tiger (Panthera tigris balica) and Java tiger (Panthera tigris sondaica) in the last 50 years. last official records for both subspecies in the wild were in 1930s and 1970s, respectively.

Wow! This is really interesting findings for me since i am not really know Mr. Tiger before. It means that this is really serious. The efforts that has been made by NGOs and other agencies for tiger conservation is soooo important. Awareness of this status is really important. I hope by this post there will be more people aware of the status of tiger in the world. Three subspecies already extinct and the recent one is about 40 years ago. I am supporting Tiger Conservation efforts!!

Voluntary Works With TIGERs

Way back in 2008, i was doing my voluntarily work at Taman TUMBINA, Bintulu, Sarawak. On my first day, i was asks to work with the TIGERs. Awesome because i like this big cat but they are a bit scary huh! 

There were four tigers in that wildlife park. They are Michail (Male tiger originated from Malacca Zoo), Kimba (female tiger given by London Circus), Pat (Michail daughter) and Manai (Michail daughter). Special names given to four of them. Hehehhe... 

Among all of them Pat is very friendly and easy to play with. However, i still have to be careful because the claws is very sharp. 

It was an interesting and interesting experienced because i was so close to four of them. I even can hold Pat's hand. Another three were a bit scary since they keep on making the roar sounds. 

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. :-) 

Public Talk on TIGER

I just want to do some promotion for this talk in my blog. Dr. Bala at Planet of the Monyets did mention about public talk on TIGER that will held tomorrow. The info can be found direct to his blog link above. I just put in some info about this talk as well.

Talk : The status of tigers in Malaysia : Problems, issues and conservation efforts
Date : 17th April, 2010 (Saturday)
Time : 11.00 a.m. till 1.00 p.m.
Venue : WWF Malaysia, 49 Jalan SS23/15, 47400 Petaling Jaya
Tel : 03-78033772

Everyone is welcome. Do come as this talk will give you a very good idea about the status of our tigers, the threats the face, the efforts being taken by the NGOs and the governments, the challenges, etc. Plus, you will also get to meet some of the bloggers who are participating in the blogfest. Feel free to bring your friends and family along.

So, for those who are in KL, please attend  and support this effort. Kalau orang Melayu cakap "Tak Kenal Maka Tak Cinta", so if you don't know who is Mr. Tiger and what is exactly happen to their populations now, you will not understand them. If you are not understand them then how to help or support the conservation effort that taken by NGOs and other agencies. This reminds me of what my ex-bos said to me, "Understanding the species (in my case it was small mammals) is the key to conservation". So, that's it, if we don't know about tiger then what can we do?

Just a thoughts from an ex-conservationist which love to be back on the track!