Simon at Sepilok

Work was postponed today (well for a half day at least) so that we could attend the first ever Sabah cultural day.

At first I thought we were heading for some sort of daytime rave as the road we were heading down was getting smaller and bumpier with each passing kilometre. Eventually the free-for-all double and treble parking signalled we were there.

Ethnic regions from both Sabah and Sarawak had sent representative groups to dance and perform in front of some major big-wigs in the Malaysian and local government. One of the attendees was supposed to be the Malaysian Minister for Culture. I assume he/she was one of the "big four" allowed to relax at the front in the comfy leather armchairs...

As guests of the Malaysian Tourist Board we were treated as minor celebrities too, which meant we were allowed to stand quite near the Ministerial area for the dancing and speeches and gently simmer in the red-hot sunshine.

After the dancing we were led across to four large tented areas, each of which was hosting an actual wedding ceremony from four different ethnic regions of Sabah.

Once again we were treated as honoured guests and were encouraged to sit amongst each wedding group so that the Tourist Board photographer as well as friend and family of the wedded couples could take photographs of us all!

It seems that us Orang Puti (White Men) are still quite a novelty here.

By now we were all gasping for a drink and we managed to stake claim to the final half dozen coconuts. The whole place had run out of bottled water and canned drinks so we were quite lucky.

We left soon after that and stopped off at a supermarket for a well earned ice cream.
Boy was it hot today!

This afternoon 3 of us headed into work so that we could help clean up the orangutans and take a few of them out for exercise. As the sun was so strong today we had to use the more sheltered tree and rope area - I think Merudu, Annekara, Rosalinda and Eniro enjoyed the session as much as we did. It was also the first time that i've carried Merudu that she hasn't pee'd on me so i think she's finally starting to accept me!

Sogo-Sogo is still isolated in the Clinic area along with Naru and Nonong. She has a bad fever and is giving us all cause for concern. I managed to get her to eat some banana today which was better than yesterday, but she is still very weak. Hang in there my little one... :-(

After work, we were entertained by the continuing story of the new water tank. It was delivered to Sepilok by lorry last week but it wouldn't fit under the entrance sign (doh!). So it has been sitting on the grass outside the resthouse while a low trailer was constructed. Today it was finally moved into position and after one false start where it became wedged under the sign they finally managed to squeeze it through...

Sogo-Sogo is struggling today, she has just been moved to the Clinic area along with Nonong and Naru. She has a fever and is definitely not herself today. It's like she is moving in slow motion all the time. Come on Sogo - be strong and fight this fever off!

This mornings "comfort and care" session was with little Merudu (who pee'd on me for the 3rd time in a row!), Ampal, Eniro and Gangie - we usually take them onto the jetty for this part of the day which is nice and shady and we can keep a close eye on them...

This afternoon i had to put on my old IT hat for the first time in a long while. We needed to get some files moved from an old Windows 98 PC whose floppy drive was broken. Luckily I managed to find a W98 driver on the web for my portable hard disk and that hooked up to it fine.
But doing that meant i missed a whole afternoon of orangutan playtime so i'll have to make up for that asap (for my own benefit of course!) on one of our upcoming free days.

Tonight was a quiet evening in, just relaxing, watching a movie on TV and reading.

Pictured left is the "trees and ropes" play area that we take the younsters to every day. Here they can practise essential survival skills, such as swinging, climbing and p*ssing on humans from the tops of trees (just ask Vicky about that one...) :-)

Highlight of the day today was seeing Gangi (one of the youngsters who is recently out of quarantine) climbing the trees in the play area and then making not just one but three separate nests!
This must be a skill that she learned from her mother before being orphaned. Seeing one nest being built by a youngster here is quite rare. So to see three was amazing.

To put it into perspective, a researcher recently spent a whole week here trying to observe nest building by the orangutans from the Indoor Nursery and despite the rangers best efforts to take the OUs out near the end of the day she left without seeing any!

Sylvia (the manager here at Sepilok) was quite excited by the news and she is encouraging us to try to capture it on video if we see it happening again. Fingers crossed...

Apart from that, nothing out of the ordinary really happened. We are settling into a good work routine and are having plenty of contact with the young OUs.

Bed very early tonight to catch up on some sleep. Working outdoors in these hot and humid conditions certainly saps your energy much faster than sitting on your bum all day in front of a PC in an air-conditioned office!

Back to real work again today. Usual cleaning, feeding and play sessions with the Orangutans.

Yvonne was on the receiving end of yet another bite, this time it was from Susannah, who didn't like being pulled away from the kitchen window after grabbing an apple.

The vet was in today to perform the autopsy on Juri and also to take blood samples from several of the other youngsters who were showing some signs of illness.
This meant they first had to go without food and then be sedated. By the afternoon they were all up and about again, a bit groggy at first of course, reminded me of how i am first thing in the morning! Hopefully the tests will all come back clear...

This evening the staff at the resthouse laid on a BBQ for Elle's birthday. So many of us are having birthdays while we are here. I think it's 6 out of 11 of us. The food was superb and there was plenty of beer to wash it down with :-)

Mr. Chin, an elderly chinaman from the little store up the road, was also here to demonstrate his 2 main vocations in life:
1) encourage the consumption of Oranjeboom (i think he might have shares in the company...!!) and
2) flirt with all the girls.
He performed both duties admirably of course...

Wow - instead of just a quick visit to inspect the orangutan enclosure at Low Kowie zoo, we were treated to a full VIP preview of the facilities and the exhibits by Melvyn, the ranger who recently left Sepilok to transfer to the zoo!

I was well impressed - the orangutan, proboscis monkey, elephant and aviary enclosures in particular were superb!

I'll let the pictures do the talking here:

First the orangutan enclosure...

Some of the other animals,
L to R: Asian Elephant, Proboscis Monkey, Malaysian Tiger and Mynah Bird...

Suffice to say we left happy in the knowledge that Bidai will be as free as he possibly can be here at KK zoo.

7 hours in a bumpy Landrover later and we were back at Sepilok to share the story and photos with the others.

Big grins all round and a real sense of achievement. Very few people will get a chance to do what we have these past 2 days!

Today started much like the previous two, with Nick, Vicky and I attending to the feeding and cleaning needs of Quarantine and Indoor Nursery. We are getting pretty good at the tasks now and the new ticklists are working well.

But then things started to develop (in a good way) beyond what I could ever have expected.

Today was the day that Bidai was due to move to the new Low Kowi zoo in KK. Elis the Head Ranger had already said we could take some photos of him leaving but then he totally surprised Nick and I by asking if we'd like to travel with him in the Landrover to KK to help with some of the lifting and the release. Of course we jumped at the task!

It meant a 7 hour drive and an overnight stay but for us to be able to be part of his transfer was a real privilege and not to be missed!

After that we were allowed to photograph all of the preparation stages. After he was sedated Bidai was transfered to the Clinic for his weigh-in (he was a shade under 60kg)

and then moved into a small transportation cage.



It had to be small as the plan was to move him fully awake, so the small cage would prevent him thrashing about too much and potentially injuring himself on the long journey. The three macaque monkeys from Quarantine were also going to be transferred at the same time, so they were caged up too.

Finally Yvonne was also squeezed into the Landrover to video some of the transfer on behalf of the Sepilok manager Sylvia.

After a quick spot of lunch we said goodbye to the others and set off for KK.

Along the way we made regular banana feeding and electrolyte drink stops (they were for all of us too of course!!) and by 8pm we pulled into the zoo and waited in the dark for our instructions to proceed. By now Bidai was quite restless (not surprising after that length of journey - i know my bum was aching so i can only imagine what his must have felt like!) but with a bit of effort we soon managed to get his cage off the Landrover and into position for release into a temporary (but thankfully much bigger) holding cage.

It was so good to see him shuffle out of the transport cage and into the holding area. Then he totally surprised us all by climbing one-handed and one-footed up the bars and proceed to hang off the roof of the cage despite his partial paralysis. The old eyes moistened up a bit at that moment i have to tell you.

He will have to stay in this temporary cage for about a week to check he is OK before he is then transferred to the real outdoor enclosure. We hope to be able to see that area in the morning.

Then it was time to leave Bidai to rest.



After watching the release of 10 very reluctant deer into another enclosure it was 10.30pm so we headed into KK city centre for some well earned dinner and check-in at the Ruby "Roach" Hotel.
On the plus side, the beds were very comfortable, but having checked into a single room Yvonne was surprised to find she was sharing her bathroom with a very handsome cockroach! I'm not sure if there were any in our room too - i was so tired they could have performed Riverdance on my face and i'd not have woken up...

Up til 1am last night watching Chelsea take another 3-point step towards back-to-back titles. Eat your hearts out Arsenal...

As i went to bed it had just started raining again and i remember thinking maybe i was premature in calling it the end of the rainy season after 3 sunny days. Sure enough, i woke up to torrential rain and soon realised it had been non-stop through the night. Once again the waters were rising around us and the poor orangutans had the dismal prospect of another day stuck indoors.

Fortunately though by 10am a few breaks had appeared so Naru, Annekara and Rosalinda were allowed out into their "outdoor" cage for the rest of the day. We also managed to take Sogo Sogo, Eniro and Gengi out to the sheltered rest area on the lake for some fresh air and exercise.

At the end of the session i was determined to start to "break" Sogo Sogo's resistence to me. She had already honoured me earlier with the privelege of giving her back a scratch through her cage bars, so i thought i'd make Nick and Vicky take the other two back leaving just the two of us. Within a couple of minutes she was holding my hand walking back with me and then she climbed up and we shared our first cuddle! I think she's weakening to my charms at last......or maybe it was just the new haircut??!

With so much rain, the group supposed to be doing the Jungle Trekking had their work cancelled for the day and the group working at the Outdoor Nursery had their work restricted. By the afternoon we had a very crowded Indoor Nursery as the others all mucked in helping with our work tasks. We're going to try to introduce a new system of whiteboard checklists tomorrow to try to coordinate all the jobs a bit better.

Between the rain showers we managed to get 5 older orangutans out for play on the ropes - Naru (youngest male out today, but holds his ground well), Toby (tries it on with us, the bravest of the 3 males out today), Kimbal (the oldest of the 3 boys, but a bullying little sh*t who always tries to bite us as he is scared of Toby!), Annekara (she spent the session rolling in the dirt and needed a bath afterwards) and Rosalinda (quietly did her own thing today).

Vicky later had a little arson moment as she left a towel too close to the gas ring, luckily the smoulderings were extinguished in seconds but she had a strange glint in her eye - clearly well have to watch her a bit more closely in future... ;-)

Lipong, one of the two year old males is still a bit sick and he is giving us cause for concern by not eating much today either. Especially after the very sad losses of the past few days. Hopefully he'll come through ok...
On the plus side we understand that big boy Bidai is due to head for KK zoo tomorrow lunchtime. I'll be sad to see him go in some ways, but i know it's for the best. A lot of the volunteers are a bit scared to go near his cage to clean and feed him, but he's always been a gentle giant for me depite his booming grunts! I'd really love to snatch a picture of him before he leaves to show you how impressive he looks. Fingers crossed on that front....

At the end of the day, tired but very happy once again.