Back from The Field: Reflecting on 2014

Hey ya'll

I have just returned from the field where I spent the better part of 2014 living with the Semai people. The Semai are one of the 18 officially recognized tribes of Indigenous Peoples living across Peninsular Malaysia and by far the most numerous and widespread. The people that adopted me into their village, and later on their homes, were from the Bukit Kinta Rainforest region of Gopeng in the state of Perak, Malaysia which is a stretch of forest that borders the Titiwangsa Mountain Range (upon which the famous Cameron Highlands is located). The Semai people of the Bukit Kinta Rainforest region were spread out over three villages, Ulu Kampar, Ulu Geruntom, and Ulu Geroh. The family that I lived with the most during my time there was from Ulu Geroh and I had been sent there by my University as part of the data collection segment of my PhD to study the customs and culture of the Semai tribe, as well as note their contributions to the conservation of local flora and fauna the most notable of which were the iconic Rafflesia flower (Rafflesia cantleyi). 

Rafflesia cantleyi is perhaps one of the smaller species of Rafflesia flower but what it lacks in size it most certainly makes up in color.

I was adopted by a small family whilst in Ulu Geroh and was welcome to stay with a warm and affectionate woman and her daughter in their small one room house (for ethical purposes I shall refer to them from this point on as my Foster Mother and Foster Sister). The women of the Semai tribe are worth mentioning as some of the most resilient and resourceful people I have had the pleasure and honor of interacting with and my Foster Mother was no exception. Even during the early weeks of my initial stay I could tell that this was a woman who was used to working for what she wanted without having to wait for the affirmation or assistance of others to achieve it. My Foster Mother lived alone with her daughter ever since her husband passed away (her oldest child, her son, had married, moved out, and had fathered kids of his own by then) and had taken it upon herself to give her daughter everything her own parents had taught her were important in life: an education, a goal, and a future. To put her daughter through school, and to ensure that she had enough money when the time came for her daughter to go to college, my Foster Mother moved out of the small town house she had been living in with her husband, and back into the village of her ancestors where she hoped she would be able to make a decent living off of the land to support herself and her children. From rubber tapping at the wee hours of the morning (sometimes, with my Foster Sister *then an infant strapped to her back ) to raising her own flock of chickens, to other odd jobs such as catching butterflies and other insects for collectors, my Foster Mother has done it all.  She was also one of the first members of the village to become actively involved in Nature Conservation and is one of the longest founding members of SEMAI, a coalition formed by the villagers dedicated to the promotion of community-based eco tourism and environmental conservation, that is active to this very day. 

My Foster Mother's house

A photo of the neighbor's house and the surrounding forests which would often be beautifully misty in the mornings.

Most homes are well equipped with a gas stove but many Semai people still prefer to cook their meals traditionally over an open fire from time to time. 

The implementation of community based eco-tourism and environmental conservation in the Ulu Geroh village is a fairly recent thing and can be traced back to just slightly over a decade ago. The efforts were first officially sponsored and supported by the Malaysian Nature Society, but has since received sponsorship from various other bodies including the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN). The SEMAI coalition was formed as part of a then-radical movement to make indigenous peoples the main stakeholders and decision makers of how best to implement Nature Conservation strategies and eco-tourism within their ancestral home land and their community. Today, SEMAI operates completely independently from any official sponsor but do continue to enjoy the support of various educational institutions and non-governmental organizations. The full story of SEMAI's formation and the growth, trials, and tribulations of its implementation of eco-tourism and nature conservation in the village is a lengthy one which I will not discuss here but I do wish to note that one of the things that I stood out to me the most was that the Semai people have always had a close relationship with the natural objects in the world around them. This, in itself is not something that is particularly remarkable and indeed, I suppose the same is often said of indigenous communities world wide. But while I had always taken for granted the "spiritual"ness in which this connection might take place, the community surprised me by showing how even the most mundane things: like the act of eating, is intrinsically tied to the various features of their ancestral homelands and so, their identities as well.  Certain forest plants, for instance, that are consumed for food, are associated with various stories of the Semai tribe that have been passed down for generations. These stories have largely withstood the tests of time and have prevailed despite factors such as modernization and the conversion of many of the Semai peoples to Christianity. By consuming these plants instead of what they call "city-vegetables" (referring to commercially cultivated greens) the Semai people are able to reconnect with their roots by accessing some form of collective based memory/imaginary that reinforces their unique identities as members of a particular indigenous tribe.

The Community Eco-Tourism Center was constructed more than 10 years ago from what was an abandoned Surau  (Muslim prayer building) that was provided for the villagers by the government. It now also serves as the village's Community Hall and important occasions such as meetings with NGO representatives and "village trials" are commonly held there. 

Living out in the forests with the indigenous peoples was something that I have always wanted to do all my life, and though I expected that there would be certain challenges along the way, some challenges that I anticipated were a lot more difficult than others. Going to the toilet, for example, was something that was particularly tricky to master in those early days. Many Semai settlements are constructed alongside rivers or other such fast moving bodies of water. As such, there didn't seem to be much need for Semai households to construct bathrooms or other such areas where one might discreetly eliminate waste. I can attest to this: squatting in the middle of a fast moving river, in full view of any person who might potentially pass by, all the while trying to balance precariously on mossy rocks is not the most conducive environment for waste elimination. Particularly when nature decides to call in the middle of the night. There is nothing quite so "frightening" as squatting on a slippery rock in the middle of the river in the middle of the night in pitch darkness. There's always the constant fear of falling into the river and being swept away by the current (particularly if it has been a rainy day), or being attacked on one's sensitive areas by any number of wild animals or creepy crawlies that might be lurking in the darkness. When I was not watching out for my behind (literally), though, the river was a fun place where people commonly headed to to cool off, especially during the dry season when there was not a cloud in sight and the weather could be most unforgiving. Of course, as common sense would dictate, any frolicking or "bathing" in the river was done much further upstream, away from where any elimination activities might take place.

Some of my closest friends in the village were the children, who often knew the best places to go to in the surrounding forests, whether it be to find turtles of fresh water shrimp, or to see the most beautiful waterfalls.  Many of these children, I would be told later in my stay, commonly referred to me as their "big brother" and would commonly seek me out when they were on holiday from school. 

Being a nature lover and an amateur lepidopterist, I kept a field journal studiously and recorded the various species of butterflies, insects, and animals that I encountered there. Fortunately for me, my Foster Mother was a woman who did not shy away from animals and indeed, kept a small flock of poultry (a mix of turkeys, guinea fowl, jungle fowl, and domesticated chickens) around her house, as well as several ornamental birds, parrots, and cats. This collection grew steadily and remarkably during my stay there. My Foster Mother would later confess to me that she felt more confident raising a larger variety of animals because I was there to provide the information and show her how. Having learnt about my love for butterflies from some of my sketches, she would also invite me out into the forest (especially during the first few months of my stay) whenever we had nothing to do around the house to search for butterflies and other insects for me to draw. Along the way, she would also enlighten me about the various plants we encountered. In this way I quickly learnt which leaves could be used to stop bleeding, or which flowers when chewed, could produce a numbing effect not unlike that of a moderately strong local anesthetic. My Foster Mother educated me in the ways of traditional indigenous medicine and passed on to me, as it was passed on to her by her father, the herbs one might use to produce a soup to cure fever, and the roots and spices needed to form a poultice that is beneficial for women who have just given birth. She also enlightened me on the different leaves, fronds, and woods that were commonly used by the Pawang (shamans) for spell casting and delighted me with stories about the various kinds of spirits that inhabit the forest as well as the appropriate methods of avoiding their wrath or mischief. The Semai tribes have a very different view on spirituality than most as spirits are considered beings that are of this world and are as real as say a tiger, or a tree. They are often spoken of as a matter of fact and almost never in a metaphorical or symbolic sense and though the worship or petition of spirits is frowned upon by most members of the community who have converted to Christianity, belief in such spirits continues to this day and traditional indigenous methods and knowledge of dealing with malice associated with said spirits are sometimes preferred in lieu of a Christian exorcism or prayer. Such a concrete belief in spirits has a profound effect on the community, typically when community members' fears of having transgressed in a particularly spiritual or "haunted" area is manifest in a "possession" of sorts: often diagnosed by symptoms such as unexplained violent outbursts, sudden change in personality or disposition, and hysteria. During my stay at Ulu Geroh, I attended no less than 6 such sessions.

Some of the animals from around the house

The Malayan Lorikeet/Blue Crowned Hanging Parrot (Loriculus galgulus) is a very significant bird in the Semai people's spirituality as it is believed to be one of the "good" animals that wards off the "dark" creatures. Certain insects, such as butterflies are also considered significant spiritually because they are believed to be the "pets" of certain powerful entities that have control over natural phenomenon like the weather.

Saying "hi!" to a particularly friendly sunbird. 

Also, due to a combination of factors: and abundance of the right host plants as well as several mineral springs in the surrounding forests, Ulu Geroh is constantly visited by BUTTERFLIES!!!

MORE butterflies...

And more butterflies than I ever thought I could see in the wild, all in large numbers and in one place

All in all, I'm going to conclude with saying that 2014 is ending on an all time high! Sure I did not come out unscathed (indeed I don't think some of these battle scars will ever heal) but what is an adventure without a few bumps along the way? And to top it off, I think I just fulfilled my New Year's resolution: to be a stronger and braver person than I was the year before. Personally, I think that I have exceeded my own expectations and more! So on that note I wish you all a very happy new year and shall leave you with these pictures of some life long friends I've made along the way: 

Blessed Be
)O(

Just Another Batty Monday

Hey ya'll

Mondays are generally a downer in most people's weekly routine but there are ways of coping with the dreaded Monday Blues. For me, nothing will beats surfing the interwebs and finding a visual goldmine such as this. 

Now this may look like a fairly unassuming hole in the ground, picturesque maybe but hardly anything to shout about... 

Until the photographer zooms in to reveal this...

...and this

...and THIS!!! 

The images above, that seem to be a vision straight out of any naturalist's dreams or chiroptophobe's nightmares is a one of a kind phenomenon that is only observable at the Monfort Bat Sanctuary on Samal Island, Philippines. There are some 5 openings leading to a network of underground caves that are home to an estimate of 1.8 million individuals of Rousette fruit bats (Rousettus amplexicaudatus). Other bat species that may be found in these subterranean networks are the Lesser False Vampire bat (Megaderm spasma) and flying foxes (pteropus sp.) making it the largest colony of its kind in the world since recorded history. Because they live in the tropics and food is abundant all year round the bats are continuously feeding and mating and breeding that overcrowding has begun to pose a serious problem. Using heat thermal cameras researchers have observed bats acting aggressively toward pups and at times, even cannibalizing them as young and adult bats alikejostle about for space in the tightly packed cavern. In an effort to elaviate the probme, management of the Monfort Bat Sanctuary have even proposed the construction of artificial caverns and networks that will enable the bats to roost more comfortably. The caves are maintained and managed by Ms Monfort, a local resident of Samal, who works with bat conservationists to protect the habitat of what is undoubtedly the single most impressive congregation of flying mammals in the world. 

Bats leaving the caves at dusk in search of food

Rare sighting of an albino bat, who is also a mother making a stark contrast among her brown and black peers.

And a closeup of the beautiful mother and her young

Photo credits: Josh Aggars @ Flickr

If you are interested in witnessing this or learning more feel free to contact the Monfort Bat Sanctuary directly at their Facebook Page: Monfort Bat Sanctuary @ Facebook 

Peace Out! :) 

Living the Rainbow: A Selection of Exotic Birds from Around the World pt. 1

Hey ya'll 

I'll be moving back to the Bukit Kinta Rainforest come March 1st 2014 so updates at the blog will foreseeable grow a lot slower. In between now and then, however, I would like to take the opportunity to clear up some of the things I've had stored away for the past few months or so. The following are a list of paintings I did of exotic birds from all over the world. The theme of inspiration for me at that time was the idea of the "Rainbow" and how so many birds seemed to embody it so effortlessly. 

The Scarlet Macaw (ara macao) is a large colorful parrot that is native to South America. They are predominantly red, yellow, and blue in color although certain individuals may ehixibit various patches of green. The range of the scarlet macaw is relatively large but deforestation and capture for the exotic bird trade has made populations of wild birds largely fragmented with small groups existed over large distances in various regions. 

Like many other macaws, they mate for life and nest in the cavities of hollowed trees. Birds are relatively long lived with some individuals recording a whopping 75-80 years of age in captivity. In the wild they may often bee found gathering in large flocks with other macaws and parrots at the banks of rivers partaking in a phenomenon that is known as "clay licking". The reason for this is thought to be because of the macaws largely herbivorous diet that may sometimes include the leaves or flowers of poisonous plants. The clay from the Amazon basin is believed to neutralize many of these toxins and make them safe for the birds to digest. The scarlet macaw is the national bird of Honduras. 

Also a member of the parrot family, the Eastern Rosella (Platycercus eximius) is a small, colorful bird that is native to the Southeastern portion of the Australian continent, and some parts of Tasmania. In recent decades, however, the Eastern Rosella has also become naturalized in many parts of New Zealand, typically North Island and Dunedin. Because of its brilliant coloration, the Eastern Rosella is sometimes kept as a pet bird although, they generally do not socialize as well with their human captors and other birds as other species of parrots. Like most parrots, the nest is made in an abandoned tree hollow and a clutch of five to six eggs may be laid. The yare one of the most colorful of the Australian parrots (barring the Rainbow Lorikeet, which is a fair contender) and may be seen readily in both rural and urban areas. 

This last Living Rainbow is not a parrot at all but a pheasant.  Probably the most underrated of the birds, the males of some pheasant species such as the handsome Golden Pheasant (Chrysolophus pictus) pictured here are some of the most spectacular members of the avian world. The Golden Pheasant is native to the mountainous areas of Western China but because of its popularity as a show bird, it has since established self sustaining feral populations in various parts of the world. The birds are about a meter long, with the tail accounting for most of its length and like many other galliforms, both sexes are highly sexually dimorphic with male birds exhibiting the more beautiful feathers. Golden pheasants are capable of flight but their rounded wings make them rather clumsy in the air. Despite their brilliant coloration, however, the birds are difficult to spot in their natural habitat and consequently, not much is known of the birds' behavior in the wild.  The bird is believed to have inspired early painters and artists with regards to the design of the Chinese Phoenix. 

As always, if you are interested in purchasing any of these images as high quality prints, feel free to browse around the print gallery at my deviantart account: http://cyrenization.deviantart.com

Peace Out

Chinese Wildlife Park a devious guise for a Tiger Farm

ATTENTION!!!

This is a picture of the Xiongshen Tiger and Bear Mountain Village in Guilin, China. The establishment houses over 1500 captive tigers which is the largest concentration of tigers in the world (perhaps more than half of what is thought to remain in the wild). Despite being littered with billboards declaring the park's dedication to protecting wildlife, many of the animals are skinny, underfed, and covered with sores. The reason for this, as revealed in the stunning expose by Richard Jones in 2010, the tigers are far more valuable dead than alive.

The Wildlife Park was founded in 1993 with only 60 tigers by Chinese millionaire Zhou Weisen. Under the guise of conservation and re-population, the park launched intensive breeding initiatives that quickly raised their numbers to the hundreds, then thousands (The park's current population of 1500 tigers is more than 2500% of the original group). And yet, the sad fact is that many of these tigers will never be rehabilitated. Some tigers are kept in open cages for display, others are locked in small concrete enclosures in perpetual darkness.

Here, they will spend their lives in concrete cells wasting away from malnutrition, neglect, and illnesses until they die. The nightmarish "tour" of Xiongshen Tiger and Bear Mountain Village ends with a trip to the establishment's "Science Hall", where a cheery salesperson (often a young woman) will offer to sell visitors six- and nine- year vintages of tiger wine at at £60, £92 and £185 a bottle. As quoted by Jones, "We have more than 1,500 tigers,' she says. 'There is no lack of raw materials for us. There are a few hundred dead tigers lying in our freezers. I can promise you that we sell only authentic tiger products." This response is significant for two reasons the first being that it displays the flippantly callous attitudes of the staff for the well being of their tigers, the second (even worse) would seem to imply that Xiongshen Tiger and Bear Mountain Village is not much of a wildlife park, as much as it is the highly publicized "cover" for a tiger farm.

Tiger wine is a medicinal tonic made by distilling the bones of tigers in rice wine/spirits for a long period of time. The resulting concoction is said to be an elixir that can cure arthritis, relieve rheumatism, and even prolong life! Understandably, it is also one of the most expensive! The bones of a single tiger, which might weight about 55 pounds, can sell for as much as 250,000 pounds to the right buyer. As one might imagine, seedy entrepreneurs and greedy businessmen are all to quick to exploit this myth which has resulted in what is believed to be one of the largest scale trade of exotic animal products in history!

Tiger Bone Wine is a non-elixir, based upon the erroneous claim that the distillation process can capture the "essence" or "strength" of the tiger. Scientifically speaking, these claims hold no merit as the bones of tigers may be said to be essentially the same to the bones of cows, or sheep, or even humans! They are all made out of the same biological substance and have no medical properties to speak of! Indeed, this fact has been recognized by several progressive traditional medicine practitioners in China who have come up with herbal alternatives to this supposedly "miracle" cure.

Although the Chinese government have recognized tigers as endangered animals and have implemented laws against the killing of tigers, there are no laws against the re-appropriation of tiger parts from animals that have supposedly died of "natural causes".
This is the issue! Improper legislation and blatant loopholes in conservation laws provide seedy business men ample opportunities for exploitation. Couple that with a desperate public willing to pay through the nose for a mythical elixir and you have an ethical, environmental disaster waiting to happen! This needs to change! It's time to start educating ourselves! 

further reading:
Jones' expose
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1252500/Exposed-Dark-secret-farm-tigers-bodies-plundered-make-185-wine.html

AnimalAsia article (complete with details of the "entertainment program" of the establishment)
http://www.animalsasia.org/index.php?UID=MV4T8DKMOEM

TripAdvisor comments and suggestions dating back to 2011 to March 5th 2013.
http://www.tripadvisor.com.my/ShowTopic-g298556-i9070-k4510945-Bear_and_tiger_park-Guilin_Guangxi_Zhuang.html

Additional article
http://jotter-journal.tumblr.com/post/30598814704/tiger-bone-wine-china-this-shabby-rundown-park

Undercover investigation video on Youtube from 2010
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mM1iP1ElUlc

note. as of 2012 Xiongshen Tiger and Bear Mountain Village in Guilin, China was still fairly popular among tourists (despite campaigns and lobbying by various internal and external parties) on websites such as TripAdvisor, with one visitor from Melbourne even commenting that the park is "Sensational because you will not see stuff like that in our oh so politically correct west which panders to the minority and aims to spoil our fun by subjecting us to a nanny state."

Wild Sex

Hey ya'll

Today I'm going to talk about wild sex, and I mean literally, "wild" sex. For many humans, sex is a pleasurable, very intimate event that often takes place when two individuals develop a strong physical (sometimes emotional) attraction for each other. In the animal world, sex is really anything BUT intimate. In fact, most sexual encounters between animals are violent, forced, and sometimes downright disturbing! For example did you know:

1. Cats have spines on their penises. This means that they literally end up "stabbing" the female from the inside out every time they withdraw! And you wonder why cats are so noisy during the mating season!
2. And speaking of weird penises, did you know that ducks have penises too? Yep! It's long, and curly and falls off at the end of the mating season! But no worries, the ducks can always grow them back  during the next mating season and dig this: they can even make them 25% longer to compete with the size of other ducks!
3. To accommodate the spiral penis of the male duck, female ducks actually have corkscrew cloaca (that's their pee-poo-egg holes) and the reason they do is that when a female is really into a male,  she will grind her body against his and what this does is that is allows his penis to go further and deeper within her.
4. Wolves have penises that swell. This means that every time a pair of wolves copulate the male LITERALLY gets stuck inside the female and there he will stay until he can ejaculate which can take up to 30 minutes at a time!
5. And last, but not least, Nautilus and some Octopuses have a modified tentacle that is really a detachable penis. This tentacle can break off from the male animal and swim around in search of a female. This has led many biologist to have considered the penis a separate organism. Looks like sharks are really the least of your worries huh? 

For more interesting (and maybe a little bit disgusting) but mostly funny wild sex facts, do check out Dr. Carin Bondar PhD or check out the Wild Sex youtube webseries. I'll even post the first episode here to start you off. 

*Wild Sex Updates

1. Heliconius butterflies are sometimes known for cradle rape! Male butterflies generally emerge a lot earlier than females and often gather to camp on sites where female chrysalids are present. When the female emerges, the males all jump on her in an orgy of lepidopteran sex! They pry open her genitalia with their abdominal claspers and proceed to mate with her in a frenzy of wings! Even before her own wings are expanded! 
2. In a related story, male heliconius butterflies also sometimes rape the females of other, but similar, butterfly species, and they sometimes do this when the female butterflies is still in her chrysalis. Since the genitalia of insects are often species specific, the trauma of the rape often ends up killing the immature female butterfly within. 
3. A pig can orgasm for almost 30 minutes.
4. Boars have a corkscrew shaped penis when they are aroused
5. Chickens can sometimes have such fervent sex that the feathers surrounding the female's cloaca begin to fall off as a result of the friction and trauma. 

*last two courtesy of Tempus* Enjoy!
Cyren.

To Kuching and Beyond

Hey y'all

It's me, your friendly neighborhood conservationist and amateur lepidopterist signing in on my last day in the great city of "cats" and "roundabouts", Kuching, Sarawak. It is incidentally also my first time here and I must say I have already begun to like this town (enough to miss it anyway) during my relatively short five day stay. Belatedly I also realize that this is the first time I will be blogging from my phone so I hope you will excuse any fault in layout that might crop up as a result.

My trip across Sarawak thus far has been most eventful and I must say that I have never quite seen so many wild animals in one place as I have seen here. But because it is getting late and I must get some sleep before I catch my buss in 8 hours or so, I will let my photographs do most of the talking. The photos are uploaded in chronological order (I can't seem to upload and caption them individually from here and am currently too tired to try and figure out how) and detail my journey to the Wind Cave, Jong's Crocodile Farm and Zoo, Semmengung Wildlife Rehabilitation Center and Sanctuary, Matang Wildlife Center, and last but certainly not least, the waterfall trail at Kubah National Park.

No specimens were collected this trip (these are protected forests that I ventured into and I have nothing but respect for conservation laws). We were also quite lucky in being able to spot the orang Utan and her baby despite the fact that it was raining on that day and that we arrived in the height of the fruiting season (the Orang Utans venture further and deeper into the forest during these rainy months) but were not so lucky during our search for the Rafflesia. Apparently we missed the blooming by just a few days. Oh well, I guess we can't always be lucky. But there is always Miri.

Anyway, until I get to our next pit stop in Sibu (and hopefully, a proper computer with which I can write with), goodnight and peace out.

For more timely updates, follow me on Twitter or Instagram.

Cheers,
Cyren.