Around Sabah in Seven Days (Part 2)
THERE is a certain thrill attached to travels into the jungle. City folks like myself so accustomed with life in the comforts of modern Kota Kinabalu, going on a hunting expedition certainly conjures a special appeal and excitement.
Hey, don’t get me wrong, my travelling companions and I are not armed with riffles, double barrel shot guns, not even a bakakuk (homemade gun) or two, but with cameras!
As a whole, it turns out to be quite a successful adventure. Pictures of the prized catch are shown here, fruits of our hard labour in trailing the orang utans in the wilds of Borneo; to be more precise in the northern part of Ulu Segama Forest Reserve.
Capturing photo images of this well protected primate in its natural habitat is no easy task, as we discovered during our recent journey Around Sabah in Seven Days.
With me are Lee Yen Phin, a master cinematographer trained in the USA and previously served as a cameraman attached to the News Division of Radio TV Malaysia (RTM) and his assistant, Chin Wee Hau, another seasoned videographer.
Credit for these rare images of the orang utan goes to Lee who was experimenting on and putting to good use a new zoom lens on his camera.
JOE LEONG
From Sandakan, we travel by road on to Lahad Datu and head straight into the Sabah Forestry Department’s base camp of the Ulu Segama-Malua (USM) Forest Reserves where a wildlife conservation project is in progress.
Knowing well that entering into a forest reserve without a valid permit is a serious offence we dared not take any chances and requested USM forestry officials to escort us in.
It turns out to be a wise move.
On reaching the first check point, as we are about to enter the private road into the timber concession area of Sabah Foundation along the Lahad Datu-Tawau highway, huge signs proclaimed that there is strictly no admission beyond this point without a valid entry permit.
Security at this entry point has been considerably beefed up in recent months (photo left) following a very nasty incident on April 2, 2009, at the USM base camp where a group of men attacked and seriously injured the District Forestry Officer, Indra Purwandita Sunjoto.
He was dragged, slashed, beaten and left unconscious. Indra was badly bruised and sustained a deep gash in the head, requiring several stitches. Even today, months after the frightful incident, he finds it too traumatic to even talk about it.
Police later arrested two men who were brought to court and they pleaded guilty to charges brought against them.
One of the biggest challenges of forestry officials in this area is, therefore, dealing with poachers who are after “bush meat”.
The attackers were believed to be from a group of local men who had habitually been entering the forest reserve to hunt for deer and other protected species including elephants, sun bear and clouded leopards.
Prior to the attack, there had been skirmishes between the illegal hunters and staff of the Sabah Foundation, the WWF and the Forestry Department.
Illegal poachers ignore signs such as this, warning against any entry without valid permit.
As we drive towards the forestry base camp, it becomes evident from the many droppings by the roadsides that herds of elephants have recently been criss-crossing this road.
Our hope is high that we could have a happy encounter with these elephants. We were told that they would normally make an appearance in late afternoons.
For two days, we moved along the road during those hours, right up to part of the neighbouring private road that leads to the Dannum Valley; but not a sign of them!
Eventually we had to accept the fact that these elephants have moved on. They have a four-month cycle along a chosen path and we have just missed them.
The last sighting of elephants in this area was late September and some forestry guys showed us some dramatic shots captured by their mobile phones.
Whilst having a yarn on wildlife experiences with Indra’s assistant, Azmi Yazid, and others at the camp, over a cup of hot Milo and some peanuts, a message reached the camp saying that a family of four orang utans has been spotted in the northern region of Ulu Segama.
Azmi quickly asks, “Are you keen to go after them, first thing in the morning?” Are we keen? Of course! That’s one of the most compelling reasons why we are there in the first place.
But be warned: You have to be early!
Once the sun is up and it gets too warm, the orang utans would move down from the trees to cooler habitats nearer the ground and we would have difficulty “shooting” them.
We are early enough, but the journey to the spot took almost three hours. By the time we were there, it was close to 10.00am. Rather late.
It is our lucky day! Firstly, we spotted the mother for just a brief moment as she was moving down a tree and never seen again. There was another one by the riverside but at a distance beyond the range of our camera lenses.
This young orang utan having a feast on yellow like berries, fruit of a ficus tree -- Photo by Lee Yen Phin
Then the prized catch appears. This young one must be about one or two years old, busy moving about from one ficus tree to another, grabbing and munching the seeds that look like berries.
To our surprise and joy, he continued feeding for almost an hour despite the hot sun, without a care about our presence and obviously enjoying the rich fruit that the ficus plants had to offer.
We spotted a nest nearby, indicating that the mother and young ones would stay at this spot for a while, before moving on. After all, there is still plenty of good food around, why move away!
The nests of orang utans are usually made of bayur tree leaves and branches. And forestry officials use nest counts to estimate the size of orang utan population for each area.
A closer inspection of the photos indicates that this young orang utan, the leading star we caught on film that day, has a thicker coat of hair than those we have seen living in captivity at sanctuaries in other parts of the state.
He looks a lot healthier and the eyes too are quite different from other orang utans I have seen; more agile and alert.
It was a rare opportunity to watch orang utans feeding in the wilds of Borneo, especially for members of the film crew.
We celebrated the success with a sumptuous lunch at Lahad Datu town before moving back to the jungles at the base camp.
On the way out of the Ulu Segama forests before heading for Tawau, Azmi and colleagues led us off the highway and showed us one of the many jalan tikus (hidden tracks) used by poachers on motorbikes to enter and hunt in the forests illegally.
It passed some oil palm plantations and vegetable farms. The Forestry Department has set up a temporary guard house to prevent further entries via this ”hidden” track (photo right) that has been detected and exposed.
We congratulated the forest officials on their alertness and vigilance in dealing with the menace of illegal hunting for wildlife, as we said goodbye to Ulu Segama and Lahad Datu and headed towards Tawau and Kalabakan.
Borneo Boy is on the move again in the coming week (Nov. 24-29), heading for Deramakot Forest Reserve that has won international recognition as the only certified well-managed forest in Sabah.
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Mon, Nov 23, 2009
Borneo Boy, Rainforests