Sunbear Release

February 1^st 2008

It’s nearly a year since I first came to Borneo and finally 3 out of the 4 sunbears in quarantine have been moved to their new home.

Situ a female sunbear was the only one who failed to respond to the anesthetic and has to be left for a few days to recover before she can be sedated again. The other 3 Bernie, Jo and my favourite Corinne were successfully moved without any stress.

 

They were sedated and then the vet allowed me to assist him with his health checks, they were weighed first and then he gave them a complete health check including a sample of blood to be analysed.

The weather was horrendous and in order to keep them dry and warm we transported them the short distance to their new home in a wheelbarrow covered in hessian sacks. One of this months volunteers, Bella, is a veterinary nurse and she was able to stay with all the bears while they were recovering. All 3 of them woke up after about an hour and surprised us all by being extremely calm and well adjusted to their new surroundings. They are now able to see each other through connecting grills in their night dens and it was expected that there would be some aggression when they saw each other but after a few growls of disapproval they left each other alone.

Once they had all recovered we left them alone to get used to their new surroundings in peace. Situ appeared quiet enough alone in her quarantine cage and all had gone well.

We returned Saturday morning to find everything very peaceful, I had been concerned that Situ and Bernie may have been distressed at having been separated but they were both fine and all bears had eaten well. Situ showed no signs of missing Bernie in fact seemed to be quite content on her own, all the bears had recovered well and once Situ joins them next week we shall make plans to let them outside into their new enclosure, it has been a long time since these bears have been outside.

 

The vet and our resident Conservation Officer John were great and very professional it is a great relief that with their expertise all went well.