Sepilok has become famous for its orangutan sanctuary which opened in the 1960s. They take orangutans in who have had their future threatened through loss of habitat or orphans who had been kept as pets.
The sanctuary have a nursery area where new comers are encouraged to develop their skills and strength. Then, they are released into the sanctuary area where they can return to the feeding platforms to supplement their food twice a day if needed. Some return all their life but some never need this.
It was amazing to watch the orangutans play and interact.
They were very patient with the long tailed monkeys who kept their distance in the nursery while the keepers were around – but as soon as the keepers turned their backs, were in like shot. We visited the sanctuary twice in the day and the highlight was seeing a young orangutan come from the open forest to the walkway and follow us along – the keeper made sure we kept moving along at a safe distance.
At the end of the first feeding time, the orangutan jumped up towards the viewing platform so the keepers told us all to move back and they encouraged the orangutan along away from us all.
We also visited the sunbear sanctuary, the smallest bears in the world. They have 43 rescued bears – rescued from poachers, people keeping them as pets and also people milking them for their bile – how awful!
We met Dr Wong who started the sanctuary and had a chat about the evils of palm oil versus other crops which apparently would take more land to feed the world population.
Palm oil plantations are everywhere here, once we passed the mountains of Mount Kinabalu and drive East- it is all you see. In short, we as humans need to stop multiplying, so Pete and I feel we have done the most impactful thing we can as humans.
The sunbeams are very cute and Dr Wong explained how no visitors for three years really hurt their future so fundraising has been tough.
That evening we went in a night walk around our hotel area and saw slow losirs (they move very, very slowly), a flying squirrel all tucked up in a tree, sunbirds asleep, a woodpecker in his hole, a mouse deer and some stick insects.
Other unwelcome insects tagged along for the walk and three girls (including me) ended up with leeches attached to our legs. This was met with varying amounts of squeeling! I managed to pull my leech off my own ankle without squeeling – I just needed a cold beer to recover from the shock and profuse sweating during the very humid walk!
The next day we drove to Lambuk Bay Sanctuary to see the proboscis monkeys (very long noses). This “sanctuary” is on a palm oil plantation where the owner decided to keep two natural areas of trees and mangroves for the monkeys and established feeding platforms for visitors to see them twice each day.
The monkeys came out of the trees en-masse, lots of mums and babies and all the young males also sticking together. They were very entertaining and amazing at jumping from tree to tree.
They also put a little fruit out and a few hornbills came down to feed. They are amazing birds!
On the road out we saw a monitor lizard about four foot long but couldn’t get a camera out quick enough to photograph it.
So all in all, Sepilok is an amazing place for wildlife. Great for education and rehabilitation – there were lots of families with young kids there. Let’s hope the next generation do better for wildlife conservation than those before them. I was sad not to see more eco schemes like water bottle refilling as every plastic bottle cast aside has an impact – more of which we saw at the coast next …..
