Monday, 29 July 2013

Another Late Entry



Again I appear to have left this place lacking an update for a good couple of months. It’s just finding the time to write between the work and the recovering from the work. Now though I am coming to the end of my stay in Tasikoki. I cannot volunteer forever, unfortunately, and that time has come, I must move on and earn some money. That being said I shall always be working with animals in one aspect or another and I will expand this blog to cover future adventures and escapades not just my time here at Tasikoki, as long as I can keep up with the updates. But I digress…

So what has happened the past 4 months? People wise, we have had a nice flow of volunteers all coming and going, sharing experiences and generally being amazing fun to work and live with. As for I have been able to cover most of my Enrichment Coordinator work, working through enrichment catalogues creating frameworks, and other around the centre. At the moment I have had to take back a few extra responsibilities as we mourned the loss of our Primate Husbandry Coordinator, as he had to go back home due to back difficulties, but these things cannot be helped. On a side note we had to renew our visas a little while ago which involved us travelling to Singapore for a week. It was an interesting trip all around really, the city is great, as far as cities go (never particularly liked cities). Though we did learn that we had been in the jungle too long through events like standing in front of a window of a mall expecting it to be an automatic door, Western World 1 – Scott 0! On the other hand, as vacations involving me usually turn out, we had to investigate the Singapore Zoos (Zoo, Night Safari, River Safari & Jurong Bird Park). These turned out to be some of my favourite Zoos I have visited – pictures to be uploaded, when I am back in the UK, to my photo blog and 500px account. I have made a note to visit these if and when I have long layovers win Singapore in the future.

Anyway enough about me, an update on the animals. Our real change in the animals here is we have had an increase, two influxes of confiscations have occurred in the past months. Many Sulawesi Crested Macaques, 1 Gorontalo Macaque, 1 Long-tailed Macaque, 2 Bear Cuscus, 1 Reticulated Python, 1 Pig-nosed Turtle, and a menagerie of birds have all joined the animals already in safety at Tasikoki and are doing much better for it. It is important more than ever that Tasikoki now has the support in needs in order to build facilities to accommodate the victims of the illegal wildlife trade.

On that note I think I’ll mention some of the stories of our new arrivals:
·         There is Rudi, a very “chatty”, young Crested Macaque who had been chained up, around his waist, for over 2 years to a tree at car wash in Manado with no shelter from the sun or rain.

  • Jacky, the macaque featured by the BBC, whose story won’t air in the Crested Macaque documentary in October but will be in a web program on the BBC website at the same time, his story is very much typical. He had been tied around the waist to a tree, in this case in a tree, over hanging a road. This restricted existence, forced to live with close air pollution, had been home for many years. Most shockingly, soon after removing him from his tree, a passing vehicle destroyed the tree, by some miracle this hadn’t happened during the long time he had been living there.
  • Then there is Jack, a Gorontalo Macaque, whose suffering I witnessed first had with a group of volunteers on our way to our Wednesday excursion before Christmas. He had been tied to a post under mango tree at a tyre workshop after moving from Manado. The owners had taught him how to smoke cigarettes; he also has a damaged hip joint from some unknown cause.
  • There is also Bobby, another case of animal cruelty as well as the illegal wildlife trade. An extremely skinny mature male Crested Macaque, his fur had also turned ginger-brown, instead of being its usual jet black, due to malnutrition. He has since gained some weight and his fur is turning back to its usual black.
  • Two Ornate Lories were recently confiscated from a house near Mt. Klabat. A common story with birds here, they were chained to frames hanging outside a house, unable to fly and being fed unsuitable food for a high energy bird like a lorry.
  • A Papuan Sulphur-crested Cockatoo was rescued recently. Again tied to a perch, however, outside of a restaurant near Manado. Unfortunately she is a little psychologically disturbed from her captive condition, patrons and owners.
  • Two young Bear Cuscus were confiscated off of villagers on Bunaken Island after their mother had been killed and eaten. A common story in the illegal wildlife trade, an animal’s parents being killed.
  • A large male Cassowary kept as a pet in a backyard with a pile of junk and a bunch of chickens. A large, dangerous, fruigvorous bird being hand fed fish, rice and sambal… that’s just not right.
  • A quite severe case of this trade. A VERY skinny, young Crested Macaque was kept by the side of a very busy road. He had been bought to be trained and used as a Topeng Monyet (Google it, it’s terrible). Well apparently he didn’t perform well so he was called stupid and left to starve by the side of the road.

These are but a few examples of the cases and miss treatment of wildlife that arrives here. All wildlife in the illegal wildlife trade (believe me it is a lot, the trade is worth $20 billion annually) are subjected to conditions like this and worse. It is only places like Tasikoki, with people who care who can help them. If you do care please support these organisations in whatever way you can, it doesn’t have to be Tasikoki just somewhere that helps. Everyone can help make a difference.

So this is my last update from Tasikoki, but won’t be the last update of adventures with Wildlife. We’ll see where the next one turns up.

Ta Ta

Scott

Thursday, 28 March 2013

Racing to Play Catch-up

Hi All,

Sorry I haven't been keeping this updated. I have been quite busy, the internet has been iffy and I just generally haven't got around to doing it. It's been 4 months today since I have updated it, so I head to the end of my 5th month of stay here in beautiful North Sulawesi I think I should update on the past months. The first month here was jam packed, so hopefully I can summarise the past 4 months whilst doing them justice.

Whilst sitting in this place almost designed for musing I shall find somewhere to start.



Well to begin with, since arriving here I have seen many people come and go. All have been great people and I have learnt so much from them, they will all be remembered and I wish them luck with everything they do, and we will hopefully meet again in the future.

Many things have happened, I am back as the enrichment coordindator again which is great, I have almost sorted all the work frameworks I needed to do which means I can get back to designing and making. Working great with the new Primate Husbandry Coordinator, a macaque enclosure has been redesigned, and many other enclosures made, and almost complete. We are slowly building up a great team of coordinators to support different areas of the centre.

Very many more excursions and trips since November, seeing baby Green and Hawksbill turtles at the Turtle project supported by Tasikoki. Many trips to Tangkoko National Park to see the Spectral Tarsiers (Tarsius tarsier) (lots of them), the Crested Macaques (Macaca nigra) (likewise lots), Bear Cuscus (Ailurops ursinus), Hornbill (Aceros cassidix). Also encountered the BBC on several occasions now, whilst filming a documentary on the Yaki (Crested Macaques) due to air in October (in the UK) so make sure to check it out.

I visited Vietnam for a week, to see the Carnivore and Pangolin Conservation Project in Cuc Phoung National Park, and to see the return of a pair of Owston's Palm Civets (Chrotogale owstoni) back to their native country of Vietnam to join a breeding program of these rare civets. Perhaps in the following days I write individual posts of some of these events in more detail like Vietnam. It was a great trip, nice to see the place and see these civets I have had some work with head "home" as it were.

A little bit about how I have been doing... great! Not much has changed about me... except maybe my hair. I still have the same mentality on animals and the life here as I arrived, I love it and it won't change. Not many new experiences outside of work as most of it here is work, and that's great. To add to my list of illnesses here I got a strange skin infection over Christmas and New Years, I think from using dirty gloves, but that is all sorted and was nothing major. Christmas and New Year were great here. I was still working but just a great atmosphere with the people here, a few parties a local's houses and such. I went for a run a long the beach at midday on Christmas Day, can't say that very often. It wasn't supposed to be a run, I wanted to collect a large clam shell I found for enrichment purposes, and the sand was so bloody hot I had to run! New Years was great to, a nice calm little party with the few volunteers left here, and then up to the top of the tower at the Guest House for midnight, when the horizon exploded into fireworks! Great to see. 

Many of my days off now, have been involving snorkelling instead of work now, so much so, to include a day off when I was snorkelling for three and a half hours about 500 metres off the coast. You see so many fish and so much stuff; otherwise I would have been out there so long. Many beautiful things out there to see, Parrotfish, Pufferfish, 3 species of Clown fish and many other miscellaneous reef fauna, and not to mention Banded Sea Kraits (Laticauda colubrina). I must get a photo of one of those Sea Krates before I leave. Many beautiful wildlife spotting opportunities on site too. I have seen many beautiful snake species, Asian Vine Snakes (Ahaetulla prasina), Sulawesi Black Racer (Ptyas dipsas), Coconut Snakes (Chrysopelea ornata), Celebes Black-tailed Rat Snakes (Gonyosoma jansenii) and many more. Not to mention gorgeous spiders, many Orb Web (Nephila pilipes spp.) species and Sulawesi Black Tarantulas (Cyriopagopus spp.), the former being simply stunning, but not as plushy as their South American cousins.

It's great being here for so long, you get to learn the animals and know their behaviours, know what they like and don't like (in the case of Is and Bento), and gain the trust (or at least tolerance) of many of the individuals. All the animals here are just characters, many of which you will gain the trust of simply by being here for a few weeks, others you really have to work on and you a get a sense of accomplishment when it happens. I have had several of these such accomplishments. First of all with Is and Bento, so much so that I begin to understand their actions a little more, such as Is' spitting either wanting something you have, wanting you attention or getting annoyed at you when you are "winning" a game such as trying to retrieve the hose when someone accidentally got to close with it. Bento more of begin his house keeping service, whenever I got to the enclosure there is always something he wants cleaned and returned such as his bag he likes to sleep in, or his cloth he likes to clean the enclosure with. This desire is often indicated by throwing said cloth at my face. Hey, if I was taken from the wild by poachers as a baby and been put into captivity would throw my dirty cloths at people with some kind of indignance even though they are feeding me and giving me things I enjoy doing. Other such trust I enjoyed working towards was that of Beckham, the alpha male of the release group. He is one handsome monkey, all Crested Macaques have an obvious Mohawk/crest - hence the name - at least that is what I believed until I saw Beckham... Beckham, unlike the others, has a Mullet, and it works, it is almost as if he woke up one morning and thought "I'm too tired to do anything with my hair today" caught he reflection in a pond and thought "Hmmm, who is this handsome monkey" and never looked backed. I didn't do this by any extra effort on my part or spending large amounts of time in the primate centre, we try to limit time people spend down there as some macaques find it stressful and others we want to release we don't want to associate anything good with. Whenever I walk past the groups many macaques ignore my presence, a bit step from being a new volunteer when they actively try to grab and scare you. However in recent months whenever I walk past a few, including Beckham occasionally lip-smack towards me (a friendly greeting in macaque terms, at least of many Southeast Asian Species). Another of these lip-smacking indicators of approval came from a Long-tailed Macaque (Macaca fascicularis) called Freddie after I gave him the mother of all hermit crabs (a least 8cm long), whilst handing out hermit crabs to the other Long-tails. These Long-tailed Macaques I was unsure as to whether they did the lip-smacking, and in fact they do! The next macaque to gain my trust will be Stare (another Long-tail) even if it kills me... or he does. He is a very angry macaque and I understand why and respect him for it... and I always like a challenge.

Hopefully I can update soon on specifics of events, but here is a brief overview. If no update then next will be Singapore to renew my visa and visit various aspects of their supposedly magnificent zoo.

Ta Ta

Scott