Malay Sun Bears

I was really lucky to go to the Bornean Sun Bear Rehabilitation Centre which is actually inside the Orang utan facility. Wai Pak met me at the Kafeteria, and took me to the centre. It's being completed in three phases, the first of which was completed earlier this year and consists of an impressive facility to house 20 Malay sun bears.

The sun bears are under threat from hunters, who kill the adult for its meat and bile (and presumably its fur?) and then sell the babies as pets. As cubs they are extremely cute, and although they have the beginnings of big claws, they're not big enough to hurt people and can be very cuddly and playful. They are kept in cages that measure just over 1 cubic metre and cost a lot of money. Of course the cubs grow up, become more dangerous to people and outgrow their cages.

The wildlife department rescues these bears and sends them to the conservation centre, where they are housed in enclosures that look to be about 8-10 times larger than the small cages. Not only this, but their enclosures are joined, so they can roam around four of them if they want to. Each enclosure has water, somewhere to sleep, and things to play and climb on. There is a training area with trees and space to climb, where the bears who have been raised in captivity are taught how to be bears again. Many of the older ones that come to the sanctuary are unable to climb because they have not been out of their cages in years. Once they have gone through training, they're let out into the 1 hectare of forest to roam around and have free access to the outside. It's pretty sad to see some of the older bears terrified to leave the enclosure, however at least they will be able to live out their years in a safe and comfortable place.

The bear house

The bears themselves are absolutely gorgeous. They are sleek and healthy, and obviously very well looked after. I did take a couple of photos, however Wai Pak asked that I just keep them off the internet because photos of bears in enclosures could be misconstrued as maltreatment. The cubs are nothing short of delightful, and I can see why people would want to keep them as pets. As they get older though they express their displeasure with a bark, just like a huge dog. I didn't upset them very much so only heard them bark once or twice, but if they are unhappy or there are strangers around, they can apparently get quite upset and are a bit scary. In the wild, these bears are solitary but since they are safe and well-fed here, it's interesting to note that they often congregate in a single enclosure to play and sleep, even though there is one per bear.

The centre is extremely environmentally friendly, using solar power and even collecting the methane from waste to use as cooking gas. Phase 2 is going to be a visitor centre which will be worth visiting in the future. They're also planning a second building to house bears as they already have 19 in the 20-bear facility.

It's a pretty impressive endeavour overall! They do have a volunteer program, so if anyone wants to come to Borneo to look after sun bears, it would be a really great experience. Thanks Wong and Wai Pak for organising my tour!