What did the lorises eat? Smelly job....

First of all, sorry sorry sorry for not having posted for such a long time. No excuse, except for bad internet connection and very busy times...

In the meanwhile, I have only 1 month left in Indonesia before I return to Europe to write up my PhD thesis. This month will be very busy: organising all my data, doing last jobs like the one I report below, applying for a so-called "exit permit" stating that I officially finished my research, etc.

Currently, my intern Mark from Van Hall University in the Netherlands and me prepared for the analysis of the lorises' faecal samples! We are going to have a very close look at the smelly poo of our friends and check out what they have eaten. This is our work space and our equipment: a microscope, magnifying glasses, lamps, spoons and trays, Eppendorf tubes and other jars, ethanol, and more... We try very hard to remember the entomology classes at school and university! I will let you know if we managed ;-)

So, let's rock! ;-)

Health check of slow lorises

 The last days we have been capturing our lorises again for a health check. After three nights we already caught 10 animals, a record!

Yesterday we re-captured Tahini! We checked if her collar is still fitting her and not too tight. In order to do that we used a pencil and stuck it under the collar. It fit and was not too tight :-) Tahini was ready to go back into her favourite gum tree after a few minutes!

The whole capturing team helping to tidy up after a releasing Tahini! Left to right: Johanna, capture expert Mr. Ade, our trackers Mr. Dendi, Mr. Adin and Aconk, volunteer Mark and volunteer Sophie

Don't let me vanish!

Please watch the set of our project's five short films about the lorises and people of Cipaganti. Thanks everybody for the support!

Don't let me vanish short films

Workshop Muka Geni 2013

Dear all, sorry that I have not posted for more than a month. We were very busy with the project. I will post some news in the following days!

One of the reasons why I were so busy is that we had a workshop organized 15th and 16th January. We focussed on the empowerment of law enforcement authorities, rescue centres and conservation aorganisations. The target animals were slow lorises, civets and tarsiers; summarised under the title "Muka Geni" = Firefaces. The workshop consisted of a day of lectures given by a range of people from Indonesia, England, Malaysia, and India, and a day of discussion and group work. We also had a session on practicing the identification of species.

Many thanks to the organising team, the host Cikananga Wildlife Centre, and all sponsors including Cleveland Metroparks Zoo, Amersfoort Zoo, People's Trust for Endangered Species, Mohamed bin Zayed Species Conservation Fund, International Primate Protection League.

The organising team from Cikananga Wildlife Centre and Little Fireface Project

 

Every participant received the new guide book "Mammals of South East Asia" from Dr. Chris Shepherd who also gave a presentation on wildlife trade at the workshop.

Workshop discussion groups - this one about education, others about illegal trade, wildlife rescue and research.

The participants of Workshop Muka Geni 2013.

Species identification session - practicing how to distinguish all the different species.

Professor Anna Nekaris, the director of Little Fireface Project giving a talk about the 3 new slow loris species that she has described recently.

I gave a talk on the importance of field studies for conservation, and presented the first results of our research in Cipaganti.

Presenting the Little Fireface Project to university students from Bogor!

This weekend I gave a talk about the Javan slow loris and our project to 90 students of the Bogor Agricultural University. The host was our partner, the Cikananga Wildlife Center. Although the students study forestry, they were extramely in

terested and enthusiastic about my talk about slow lorises! Very active and engaging students! I hope I could get some of them so interested that they might want to do their final research projects at LFP! :-)

 

 

 

Loris daddys!

Last week we saw our new male Toyib and Sherly's baby hanging out together several times. This is very interesting. Is Toyib the father of the baby? Do loris daddys care for the offspring as well? That would be quite special as this is very rare in mammals. But I believe they do! Because this is not the only time we saw it in Cipaganti, but we have observed it many times with our male Guntur and sub-adult male Yogi! Well, our "solitary" lorises seem to be more social than we think :-)

A new member of the Kukang Clan! One-Eye has a baby!!!

Yesterday we observed One-Eye. At about 4 am she moved near a big bamboo. We lost sight of her as there is very dense bush area around the bamboo. Suddenly I saw something glowing red in the dark again. I looked with my binoculars, but there were TWO eyes, not only one. And they were TINY! Then I saw it: it was a tiny baby, maybe about 2 months old! A bit later, One-Eye sneaked past us without us noticing her and joined her baby. Unfortunately we do not have photos yet. But isn't it great, that a loris with only one eye still is still able to reproduce and to thrive in the wild? Makes me so happy!!! :-)))

(Photo: Wawan Tarniwan)