(E.B.W.)
Critter Corner
Feature:
Orangutans & giant turtles enchant visitors
“Standing in the jungle in Borneo,
wilting on a humid 40C afternoon, the simple act of breathing can drench you
completely…I try to move as little as possible on the viewing platform…giant
trees stretching to the sky, dense low-level vegetation dripping with moisture,
& thick vines zigzagging among the branches.
Then, high up in the canopy, the
leaves start to move…
I point up to the trees just as a
young female swings into sight with a baby clinging to her chest. My son
follows my outstretched finger & smiles with surprise…
The Sepilok Orangutan Rehabilitation
Centre is nestled in the Kabili-Sepilok Forest Reserve, a stretch of virgin
forest in the Malaysian Borneo protected by the government since 1964. Rangers
at the centre care for orangutans that are orphaned, abused, or abandoned &
gradually reintroduce them to the wild in an effort to increase their now
dwindling population.
And so, anywhere from 200 to 800
tourists a day pay the roughly $10 per adult ($5 per child) to visit the centre
to get as close a view as possible of these shy & gentle primates…
Once the orangutans arrive, there is
silence from everyone…For this is what we had all come here to see: Wild
orangutans playing in the trees, beautiful & graceful, before disappearing
into the seemingly impenetrable vegetation so quickly, you wonder for a moment
if it even happened at all.
But jungles & orangutans aren’t
the only reasons we come to Borneo. And after
a few days of mainland heat & humidity, we are ready for a trip to the
ocean. From the marina in Sandakan, we catch our
90-minute speedboat to Selingan Island, one of a handful of annual birthing areas for
giant sea turtles…we are keen to reach the 7.2-hectare island in the Sulu Sea near the Philippine border.
Every night, 450-pound turtles,
numbering anywhere from 5 to 50, scramble out of the water & flap their way
through the sand to deposit their eggs on the island where they were born. Even
though the females may spend their first 30 to 40 years roaming the earth’s
oceans before they return, tiny crystals in their skulls tune them in to the
magnetic field of the island &, year after year, beckon them back.
…we take off, jogging through the sand
toward a point where rangers spot the first enormous turtle who has come to lay
her eggs that evening
…We are offered spots at the front
as the turtle lays her 120 small white eggs in a deep hole in the sand, &
again when the rangers collect & bury their eggs in a special fenced-in
incubation area, protected from predators until ready to hatch.
The last treat of the night is to
watch the rangers release a bucketful of newly hatched baby turtles into the
ocean…”
Michela
Pasquali
POSTMEDIA
NEWS
The Montreal Gazette
Dec. 7/2013
Weekly Chuckle
