We spent the day on Borneo yesterday—what a day! Borneo is
the only island in the world that is composed of 3 nations. The southern part of
the island is Indonesian, most of the northern part is Malaysian, with a little
bit of the north cut out for the Sultanate of Brunei. The Sultan of Brunei is
one of the richest men on earth from the oil and gas lying under his tiny
kingdom. He spends lavishly and
has a car collection of 5000-7000 cars, housed in an air-conditioned garage.
When Ferrari comes out with a new model, the CEO of the company checks with the
Sultan regarding design and, when satisfied, the Sultan orders the new model in
every color!
The Indonesian portion of Borneo is very poor and relies
heavily on timber as their main resource—hardwoods and plywood. Unfortunately,
good conservation practices are not occurring—new trees are not being planted
and the rate of removal is too high to sustain.
The Malaysian portion is doing a booming business in natural
gas right now, shipping most of theirs to Japan and Australia. Prior to the
start of drilling in the ‘80s, the Malaysian portion depended on timber, which
resulted in deforestation and, like Indonesia, has not been well managed.
Borneo is a botanist’s or biologist’s dream. The species
here are, in many cases, unique and not found elsewhere in the world. The
problem here is that, without adequate forests, several species are becoming
endangered. Malaysia has established a number of animal rehab centers to
prevent extinction. Visiting animals in the wilds of Borneo requires a lengthy
visit. During our day here, we visited 2 rehab centers: the Sepitok Center for
Orang Utans (local spelling) and the Labuk Bay Center for the Proboscis Monkey.
In both cases, the animals are lured to feeding platforms a
couple times a day so they can charge customers large entrance fees and camera
fees—both of which are worth it!
The Orang Utans live in the trees—almost exclusively. During
the dry season, they occasionally need to come down to the forest floor to
drink in a river. When they come down, they open themselves to predators: pythons
(up to 30 ft. long), crocodiles and leopards. They travel through the forest
tree-to-tree or, in this case, on ropes strung between trees and the feeding
platform. This makes photography very difficult—it took a lot of lens to get
these photos and several are not as crisp as we would like. Pictures 1-4 show
some of the apes traveling among the trees. We saw a total of 7 apes and our
only disappointment was not seeing a mature male.
Pictures 5 and 6 show a mother a baby, who arrived on the
platform as soon as the ranger put down the food and stayed there the whole
time, while the others would stop by to pick something up and then leave the
platform.
The only other place where Orang Utans are found is on the
island of Sumatra. Borneo seems to be doing a better job of encouraging growth
in numbers of these apes and most experts think Borneo will be the last viable
location for these gentle apes that share 96+% or our genes.
Proboscis monkeys are named for their large noses and
rounded bellies. As the pictures show, the noses are good-sized and get larger
as the monkey gets older. Picture 7 shows the alpha male—check out his nose!
Picture 8 shows a younger monkey with a slightly smaller nose. Picture 9 is much younger. Finally,
Picture 10 shows a baby, with a small nose. They were playful and seemed to
pose for the cameras.
Fortunately, at this sanctuary we actually got to see some
other wildlife. Picture 11 shows a
Mud Skipper. The rainy season is over and things are starting to dry up. This
fellow is in the remains of the water hole, which I assume will not be allowed
to dry up. Picture 12 is the Oriental Pied Hornbill—what a magnificent fellow!
Pied means black and white and he stood out among the trees. Picture 13 is a
silver leaf monkey. These little fellows have no fear and startled a number of
visitors by suddenly jumping on the railing.
The last picture is of a water village—fisherman who live
above their business!
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