tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-45444833119901051052024-03-13T17:05:39.997+07:00Bornean Clouded Leopard ProgrammeThis programme strives to make substantial progress towards the conservation of the Sunda clouded leopard and other threatened members of the Bornean felid guild through the implementation of a multidisciplinary conservation initiative, merging pioneering research, local capacity building and environmental educationAndy Hearnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10405284067095591144noreply@blogger.comBlogger38125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4544483311990105105.post-89235980652567367992016-03-24T22:17:00.003+07:002016-04-08T02:06:43.072+07:00Counting marbles...<br />
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Doesn't time fly.. It's been ages since I've updated this blog, but rest assured, in the meantime I have been busy collecting data on the Bornean wild cats in the field and conducting analyses in the office. In my absence this website seems to have fallen to pieces, but I intend to address this pretty soon, most likely with a whole new website.</div>
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Regardless, I've got some exciting news to share regarding a project we've been working on for many years - estimating the population density of marbled cats in Sabah. In a new (open access) <a href="http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0151046" target="_blank">PlosONE</a> paper, we present the first estimates of marbled cat density from anywhere in their range. We show that marbled cats are found in a range of forest types, including both primary and selectively logged, but tentatively suggest that oil palm plantations may not support this elusive wild cat.</div>
Andy Hearnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10405284067095591144noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4544483311990105105.post-21720122666433479782013-03-27T18:28:00.000+07:002013-03-27T19:06:31.494+07:00New paper: clouded leopard & prey activity patterns<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-XS1N4WOgK-4/UVLXdMSS56I/AAAAAAAAA3U/l78IZeOskF4/s1600/cl+closeup.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="248" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-XS1N4WOgK-4/UVLXdMSS56I/AAAAAAAAA3U/l78IZeOskF4/s400/cl+closeup.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Sunda clouded leopards terrestrial activity was shown to be mainly nocturnal</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-Y6fD_LXgMd8/UVLT9kr7baI/AAAAAAAAA3E/rs0n-xntDRg/s1600/Sambar+calf+RIL+2b+0045+copy.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="248" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-Y6fD_LXgMd8/UVLT9kr7baI/AAAAAAAAA3E/rs0n-xntDRg/s400/Sambar+calf+RIL+2b+0045+copy.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">On the menu. A samba deer calf may be an important component of <br />
Sunda clouded leopard's diet</td></tr>
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At long last we are beginning to churn through the mountain
of camera trapping data we have been accumulating over the last few years and to
turn it into conservation science. Our most recent paper, available from <a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/jzo.12018/abstract" target="_blank">here</a>,
explores the terrestrial activity patterns of the Sunda clouded leopard and
those of their potential ungulate prey.</div>
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I say potential, because at this stage we really don’t know
what these cats are eating – in fact, we know almost nothing about even the basic ecology of these elusive felids. We have a number of anecdotes and sightings
of clouded leopards attacking this species, and eating that, which tend to
suggest that the clouded leopard has a very varied diet, feasting on a diverse
array of mammals from monkeys to muntjacs. But we really don’t have a good
handle on what constitutes the most important prey. <br />
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Ultimately, the only way to answer this
important question is to collect scat, and poke around to quantitatively assess
prey composition – and this is something we are attempting to do right now.
Another, indirect approach is to explore overlaps in activity between the
predator and their prey – by making use of camera trap data. We might expect
predator activity to be often in phase with the periods when those potential
prey species are most vulnerable to their method of predation. For some
predators, this may result in their activity patterns mirroring those of their
prey, as has been shown in several felid-prey systems, but this may not always
be the case.</div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-TDCJg4BWWCU/UVLWHgnxgQI/AAAAAAAAA3M/-Tv0pVlcWGo/s1600/pig.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="250" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-TDCJg4BWWCU/UVLWHgnxgQI/AAAAAAAAA3M/-Tv0pVlcWGo/s400/pig.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Saving their bacon? Bearded pigs were shown to have a more diurnal activity <br />
pattern when clouded leopard were present - evidence of avoidance?</td></tr>
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With this in mind we catalogued the tens of thousands of
images for clouded leopard and prey from across our forest study sites, and
used some clever wizardry to construct models of each species’ activity patterns.
So what did we find? Firstly, Sunda clouded leopard’s terrestrial activity was
found to be primarily nocturnal, although crepuscular peaks and some diurnal
activity was also evident. We found that
of six potential ungulate prey species, Sunda clouded leopards' activity
patterns overlapped most closely with those of sambar deer and greater mouse
deer. </div>
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Interestingly, we also found that in one of our forest areas
where clouded leopard were apparently absent, bearded pigs showed a greater level
of nocturnal activity, whe compared to pig populations living alongside the predatory
felid. This finding suggests that bearded pigs may be prey species for clouded
leopards and they are capable of altering their activity pattern in response to
this risk.</div>
<br />Andy Hearnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10405284067095591144noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4544483311990105105.post-39459843930578131832013-03-26T04:56:00.002+07:002013-03-26T04:56:50.838+07:00Return to Danum Valley<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-F_qZwRMzbJM/UVDDjrvRxhI/AAAAAAAAA2s/HfKz5_pvfYo/s1600/CLM1+Danum+15a+0147+copy.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="248" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-F_qZwRMzbJM/UVDDjrvRxhI/AAAAAAAAA2s/HfKz5_pvfYo/s400/CLM1+Danum+15a+0147+copy.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">A glimpse into the life of a clouded leopard. This was the first of<br />six males we recorded.</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-J3NCD-7G-nk/UVDHtoeTCcI/AAAAAAAAA20/DE_R6Dx_ZjE/s1600/CLM2+Danum+15a+3817.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="248" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-J3NCD-7G-nk/UVDHtoeTCcI/AAAAAAAAA20/DE_R6Dx_ZjE/s400/CLM2+Danum+15a+3817.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Male 2 wanders along a high ridgeline early in the morning</td></tr>
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Well it’s been a fair while since I last wrote on here – so high
time for another update on our progress with the clouded leopards of
Borneo... </div>
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Following directly on from our
survey of the Crocker Range the team and I packed up and headed to an old stomping
ground – the Danum Valley Conservation Area. </div>
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The last time we were here, way
back in 2006, we struggled to get sufficient numbers of photographic detections
of clouded leopards to estimate their density. Armed with far more, and
arguable much better, camera traps, and hopefully a little more wild cat savvy
than in the past, we headed into the forest along once familiar trails and
ridges, in search of Sabah’s elusive felids. Not wanting to make things too
easy, we set ourselves the hardest task to date (yes, even harder than Crocker’s
punishing mountains): 80 camera stations over 150 km2. This took the team a gruelling
6 months to complete, the vast majority of it spent camping at makeshift camp
sites – but thankfully it was most definitely worth it. </div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-o6BFy4KbxcQ/UVC_EkxIfhI/AAAAAAAAA2c/lpueJT6z3cY/s1600/Bay+cat.+Danum+57a+0688.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="250" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-o6BFy4KbxcQ/UVC_EkxIfhI/AAAAAAAAA2c/lpueJT6z3cY/s400/Bay+cat.+Danum+57a+0688.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">One of only two detections of the bay cat. In seven years we've only <br />recorded this cat around 30 times</td></tr>
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We photographed an amazing 9 nine different
animals, six males and 3 females, on 93 distinct occasions, which is a record
for us! Marbled cats were coming in thick and fast too, with a total of 53 independent
photographic detections, yet we photographed surprisingly few bay cats, only
two occasions. Whilst these reddish/grey cats appear to be rarer than chicken’s
teeth, and so I wouldn’t expect to get many of them on camera, we actually
fared much better back in 2006/7, despite a hugely greater effort. I suspect
this is more a reflection of our heightened ability to place cameras in clouded
leopard areas as opposed to there being less bay cats – but more on these thought
later. </div>
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A rather nice turn-up for the
books was the Hose’s civet, which to my knowledge is the first confirmed record
for this species in Danum. Suffice to
say, the second crack at Danum Valley has been a complete success, and I thank
my team for putting in a huge effort! </div>
Andy Hearnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10405284067095591144noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4544483311990105105.post-14235670350811426202012-06-19T20:59:00.000+07:002012-08-03T23:10:42.769+07:00We've got a result!<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-HFWIBKDrJ1M/T-CBBXEQIdI/AAAAAAAAA2M/5U9pyhFPXGE/s1600/Gul+in+Crocker.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="529" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-HFWIBKDrJ1M/T-CBBXEQIdI/AAAAAAAAA2M/5U9pyhFPXGE/s640/Gul+in+Crocker.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Gul surrounded by mossy forest on one of Crocker's ridgetops </td></tr>
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All our hard work hiking up and down Crocker Range's high ridges and river valleys has thankfully paid off.... We've got a result! I’m still tweaking the analysis, but overall we obtained 370 clouded leopard photos,
representing 51 independent capture events of 8 different animals. Two of
these animals appear to be cubs following their mother. Using the spatially
explicit capture recapture approach I estimate that clouded leopard density in the southern portion of Crocker is around 1.4 individuals per 100km2 (0.8 - 2.2 ind/100km2 95% Confidence Intervals).<br />
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This was one of the toughest surveys to date and when we first started we weren't sure we'd pull it off. So a big thank you to the team - Gil, Gul, Jasz, Nur and Ijam for doing a sterling job. Thanks also to our volunteers - Sean Proctor, Kevin Hodge and Lyndsey Stanton, who all stood up remarkably well to the rigors of Crocker Range life! Lastly, a big thank you to all the organisations and individuals that have supported us, in particular, Staff from Sabah Parks and the Sabah Wildlife Department, Karen Povey and the Clouded Leopard Project at Point Defiance Zoo, Houston Zoo and The Kaplan family. </div>
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<br /></div>Andy Hearnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10405284067095591144noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4544483311990105105.post-16246800321810288482012-04-05T14:35:00.000+07:002012-04-07T19:33:32.123+07:00Volunteers needed in the Danum Valley!<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><br /></span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">We are now offering volunteer placements for individuals to help us conduct a clouded leopard camera trap survey of the Danum Valley Conservation Area. If you fancy experiencing the ‘real’ Bornean rainforest, learning new skills and helping us learn about the elusive Sunda clouded leopard, then read on...</span>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Bh9tSTa5zXg/T30-oJglHyI/AAAAAAAAA10/vfZ0vYfGn98/s1600/sunrise+over+Danum+Valley.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Bh9tSTa5zXg/T30-oJglHyI/AAAAAAAAA10/vfZ0vYfGn98/s1600/sunrise+over+Danum+Valley.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Sunrise over the Danum Valley - one of Sabah's last remaining primary rainforests - and one of the last remaining places<br />
on Earth where Sumatran rhino, elephant, clouded leopard and orang utan live side by side.</td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">Return to Danum....</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Our camera survey of Crocker Range is now complete and the data will shortly be analysed - more on this soon. Meanwhile our team have now moved onto perhaps the jewel in Sabah's crown: the <i>Danum Valley Conversation Area</i>. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Back in 2007 Danum was host to the first ever attempt at a camera trap based assessment of clouded leopard density. Ultimately though, we never reached our goal, due primarily to a lack camera trap, sub-standard camera equipment, and a lack of expertise. I'm pleased to say that thanks to our sponsors the camera traps are no longer a problem - and with six surveys under our belt since our last visit here I think it's fair to say we now have the expertise.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-YmQo6jZOGVk/T31HYlWQryI/AAAAAAAAA18/RkXQtPPQidI/s1600/clouded+leopard+cub+at+Danum.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-YmQo6jZOGVk/T31HYlWQryI/AAAAAAAAA18/RkXQtPPQidI/s1600/clouded+leopard+cub+at+Danum.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">A rarely photographed clouded leopard cub, one of three animals previously recorded in Danum Valley.</td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Our
work is focused on providing basic, yet scientifically sound information
regarding the Sunda clouded leopard and other threatened felids in Sabah to
help guide viable conservation strategies for these species. As such, one of
the core questions that we are attempting to answer is:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><i>What
is the distribution and conservation status of Sunda clouded leopards and other
felids throughout Sabah, and what factors affect their presence and abundance? </i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">To help address this question we have developed a research approach primarily
constructed around multiple 6-month camera trap surveys designed to estimate
clouded leopard densities and felid community structure in areas of forest
exposed to different forest management strategies. Few data exist
regarding Bornean felid communities, with your efforts, we can ensure that we
gain the best possible information we can.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">When?</span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">We
are looking for volunteers to start as early as the beginning of May 2012, but
positions will be available throughout the survey – ending in September 2012.
You must be available to work on the project for a minimum of 1 month,
although we will consider taking on candidates for shorter periods if they
already have sufficient experience. Get in touch if you are interested and
we’ll take it from there.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-f3BESpyIlMQ/T31I2m4c1MI/AAAAAAAAA2E/JRr_kHsTCpA/s1600/Danum+Valley+Field+Centre.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-f3BESpyIlMQ/T31I2m4c1MI/AAAAAAAAA2E/JRr_kHsTCpA/s1600/Danum+Valley+Field+Centre.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The Danum Valley Field Centre</td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">The
Danum Valley Conservation Area <a href="http://www.searrp.org/danum-valley">http://www.searrp.org/danum-valley</a>
is located deep within Sabah, Malaysian Borneo (4º50′N – 5º00′N and 117º35′E –
117º45′E). The Danum Valley Field Centre is approximately 70 km inland from the
town of Lahad Datu on Sabah’s east coast.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Covering
43,800 hectares (438 km2), the Danum Valley Conservation Area is one of the
largest, most important and best-protected expanses of pristine lowland forest
remaining in SE Asia.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Danum
Valley, and several other large primary forest protected areas including the
Maliau Basin and Imbak Canyon Conservation Areas, are embedded within an
exceptionally large (>10,000 km2) forest concession operated by Yayasan
Sabah (the Sabah Foundation). The bulk of the of the Yayasan Sabah area is
under a regime of natural forest management, but also includes extensive timber
and oil palm plantations, community forestry programmes, eco-tourism sites and
two of the region’s largest forest rehabilitation projects. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">Duties </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Volunteers
will assist with all aspects of the project (see earlier posts on the blog for
an idea of what we get up to), including, but not restricted to: mapping and
creation of forest trails and incorporation of spatial data into a GIS, deploying
and checking camera traps over an approximate area of 150km2 of forest, and photographic data management. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">Requirements </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">We
are ideally looking for candidates with (or currently undertaking) at least a
first degree in an appropriate Natural Science, although this is by no means a
prerequisite and we will happily consider keen individuals with a demonstrated
interested in wildlife conservation. Above all else candidates should
have an <u>extremely high level of fitness</u> and a willingness to work in a
challenging environment. The work will involve very long and arduous
hikes over difficult terrain, and will frequently necessitate camping for up to
10 nights at a time at remote locations. Volunteers
must be able to carry 50+ litre rucksacks weighing between 15-20 kg. The ideal
candidates will have some experience of the activities described above,
although this is not essential as full training will be provided. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">This
is an extremely rewarding position working in arguably one of the most beautiful forests remaining on Borneo. However, I simply cant overstate just how important it is for volunteers to be physically fit. In the past we have had to turn down candidates simply because they were unable to deal with the conditions. Please think this through before applying!</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Unlike other projects we
will not ask for any contribution towards project costs. However, you must be able to
cover both your own transport costs to Danum Valley Field Centre, Sabah, and
your subsistence costs (i.e., food and accommodation costs at field sites). </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: large;">Further Questions</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">For further information and to apply please <a href="mailto:ajhearn_@hotmail.com" target="_blank">email me</a></span></div>
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<o:p></o:p></div>Andy Hearnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10405284067095591144noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4544483311990105105.post-62360535248115177122012-02-16T22:13:00.001+07:002012-02-16T22:13:49.851+07:00Video: Clouded leopard scent marking!<br />
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<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-3-jUhZE6Gs8/Tz0bxz2JbSI/AAAAAAAAA1s/LzqmFcD6Vus/s1600/clouded+leopard+scent+marking.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="329" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-3-jUhZE6Gs8/Tz0bxz2JbSI/AAAAAAAAA1s/LzqmFcD6Vus/s640/clouded+leopard+scent+marking.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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Things are drawing to a close here in the Crocker Range, and we're now busy bringing our fleet of camera traps in from the hills. It's a bit of an anxious time as we find out if any more cameras have been stolen (10 to date!) and whether we've captured enough clouded leopards on camera to enable us to estimate their density. Despite the nerves, we are very optimistic, and if the rate of photo-captures these last 4 weeks matches that of the first 2 months of cam trapping, then I'll be smiling.<br />
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So far we've captured an impressive 288 cloudie photographs, representing 37 separate occasions of six different animals. Most of these have been from Male 1, including the video below, which I've stitched together from multiple camera images. Here he can be seen moving along a sharp ridgeline, and clearly pauses at a tree to scent mark, probably the first footage of this behavior in this elusive cat! <br />
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<iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='320' height='266' src='https://www.youtube.com/embed/QgKsSRu0Eto?feature=player_embedded' frameborder='0'></iframe></div>Andy Hearnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10405284067095591144noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4544483311990105105.post-44683743046967289882011-12-07T16:54:00.001+07:002011-12-07T22:10:42.874+07:00Crocker's cloudies rolling in...<br />
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<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-Lmy9nfo0xdg/Tt89Yq1ctHI/AAAAAAAAAmY/GODEACIxNYQ/s1600/Sunda+clouded+leopard+male+1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="198" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-Lmy9nfo0xdg/Tt89Yq1ctHI/AAAAAAAAAmY/GODEACIxNYQ/s320/Sunda+clouded+leopard+male+1.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Yesterday
was a good day – a very good day. On
Monday Gil, Gul and I packed our bags and headed to the village of Ulu Senagang,
where the trail up onto the Senagang ridge rises, and where the last of our
cameras to be checked awaited us. The
week before produced the first of our clouded leopard photos from Crocker Range, all
of a single male <a href="http://borneanwildcat.blogspot.com/p/focal-species.html" target="_blank">clouded leopard</a>, so we were excited to see whether this same animal, or indeed
any of his friends, had also used the Senagang ridge.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">It had originally
taken us four days of camping to put the camera traps out along this ridge, so
we thought we could shave some time off and do it in three. We did it in two (very painful) days, just
managing to leave the forest as night fell. On arrival back at the house we were all exhausted,
and so, despite our excitement, we agreed to look through the new photos in the
morning. But perhaps just one camera trap before bed… </span><br />
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<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-hvRXXgnpLmc/Tt8-MmX5fMI/AAAAAAAAAmg/CgM9qema3Z8/s1600/Sunda+clouded+leopard+male+2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; display: inline !important; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" height="198" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-hvRXXgnpLmc/Tt8-MmX5fMI/AAAAAAAAAmg/CgM9qema3Z8/s320/Sunda+clouded+leopard+male+2.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">And that’s when the fun began! Camera after camera began to reveal more and more cool animals, including some <a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-Ncrudyhzx3w/TtSegod-zCI/AAAAAAAAAlY/I_o02-sORAw/s1600/Hoses+civet+Crocker+1.jpg" target="_blank">Hose’s civet</a>, a handful of leopard cat, yet another <a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-8iTuefsWBaQ/TtYC_Cq0JUI/AAAAAAAAAmA/qu_AX129E-s/s1600/Malay+weasel+Crocker+ii+3.jpg" target="_blank">Malay weasel</a> and even some more Linsang, and….. loads of <a href="http://borneanwildcat.blogspot.com/p/focal-species.html" target="_blank">clouded leopards</a>! </span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">By 12:00am this morning we had finally finished going through all the photos; we knew we had some new animals, but final identification of the <a href="http://borneanwildcat.blogspot.com/2007/09/project-mission-background.html" target="_blank">cloudies</a> would have to wait.</span><br />
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<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-NRsqpPLwDPM/Tt8_UQaifnI/AAAAAAAAAmo/qra_2i0IZKg/s1600/Sunda+clouded+leopard+male+3.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="198" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-NRsqpPLwDPM/Tt8_UQaifnI/AAAAAAAAAmo/qra_2i0IZKg/s320/Sunda+clouded+leopard+male+3.jpg" width="320" /></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Like I say, we knew we had some new animals, but having carefully cropped and compared all the images I was blown away to find that we now have SIX animals – 1 female and five males!!!!! On one occasion, the female has walked past the camera, followed immediately by a new male, and later by another (perhaps young male).</span><br />
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<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-yBgOpOdRudo/Tt9ALxbD2NI/AAAAAAAAAmw/YqQuI9TFifc/s1600/Sunda+clouded+leopard+male+4.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em; text-align: justify;"><img border="0" height="198" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-yBgOpOdRudo/Tt9ALxbD2NI/AAAAAAAAAmw/YqQuI9TFifc/s320/Sunda+clouded+leopard+male+4.jpg" width="320" /></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">This is an amazing start, and it bodes well for Crocker Range’s clouded leopard population. If the photos keep coming in at this rate, I think we can do some useful science. Stay tuned.</span><br />
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<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-gtdK1R0PSGA/Tt9B2-6-XjI/AAAAAAAAAm4/l9tSlun1W7s/s1600/Sunda+clouded+leopard+male+5.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="198" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-gtdK1R0PSGA/Tt9B2-6-XjI/AAAAAAAAAm4/l9tSlun1W7s/s320/Sunda+clouded+leopard+male+5.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #999999; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i>Caption: top to bottom, Male 1, Female 1, Male 2, Male 3, Male 4, Male 5. As you can see, camera trap images are not always pretty... but these are more than adequate to idenitify the animal to an individual. The shots are in black and white as this particulalr camera trap shoots in infrared at night. Although some animals can see this light quite clearly, it doesn't seem to bother most of them. </i></span></div>
</div>Andy Hearnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10405284067095591144noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4544483311990105105.post-72092144857361306502011-11-29T15:35:00.001+07:002011-12-07T21:43:53.832+07:00Amazing first results from Crocker Range<br />
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<span class="apple-style-span"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">With the last camera trap finally in place, the fun phase has begun…
time to check the cameras. And what a start; in addition to the usual crowd of
pigs, muntjac, mousedeer, malay civet and the like, we’ve been getting a number
of amazing results, including some species that we rarely ever encounter, and
even a first for the project…. </span></span></div>
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<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-XMGBe4YTbI0/TtSf5K6WW-I/AAAAAAAAAlo/AjkdJ2slIr4/s1600/marbled+cat+Crocker+1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="199" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-XMGBe4YTbI0/TtSf5K6WW-I/AAAAAAAAAlo/AjkdJ2slIr4/s320/marbled+cat+Crocker+1.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-g4EF7-Oip0I/TtYCGWP7UTI/AAAAAAAAAl4/IAEYZZoN-h0/s1600/Banded+linsang+Crocker+1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; display: inline !important; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><img border="0" height="198" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-g4EF7-Oip0I/TtYCGWP7UTI/AAAAAAAAAl4/IAEYZZoN-h0/s320/Banded+linsang+Crocker+1.jpg" width="320" /></a><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">This is a wild cat
project after all, so I'll start with the stars of the show. After more
than six months of cam trapping in Sepilok and the surrounding oil palm
plantation, without even a hint of a clouded leopard, you can imagine how
excited we all were last week when we returned to the house after a camping trip
to check the cameras and a perfectly composed (see right) <a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-v-UbHsFScwg/TtSaXrE7X_I/AAAAAAAAAlI/A1kr5Q6Lv3o/s1600/Sunda+clouded+leopard.+Crcoker+1.jpg" target="_blank">clouded leopard</a> photo appeared
on our screen. Since then we’ve picked up several more, and we now have 5
photo events from 4 camera sites. Careful scrutiny of the photos shows that
they all belong to a single male, spread over 23km2!! It’s still early days, but the reasonable
encounter rate and the lack of any other individuals, hints at a low population
density, which is not altogether surprising. It’s hard to say at this stage
whether we’ll have enough data to conduct a density analysis – so fingers
crossed the photos keep rolling in. We’ve also got confirmation of <a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-XMGBe4YTbI0/TtSf5K6WW-I/AAAAAAAAAlo/AjkdJ2slIr4/s1600/marbled+cat+Crocker+1.jpg" target="_blank">marbled cat</a>
(only 1 photo to date), and leopard cat (from 3 sites), but alas no Bay cat so
far. Come on bay cat, where are you? </span></div>
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<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-Ncrudyhzx3w/TtSegod-zCI/AAAAAAAAAlY/I_o02-sORAw/s1600/Hoses+civet+Crocker+1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="198" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-Ncrudyhzx3w/TtSegod-zCI/AAAAAAAAAlY/I_o02-sORAw/s1600/Hoses+civet+Crocker+1.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-8iTuefsWBaQ/TtYC_Cq0JUI/AAAAAAAAAmA/qu_AX129E-s/s1600/Malay+weasel+Crocker+ii+3.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="198" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-8iTuefsWBaQ/TtYC_Cq0JUI/AAAAAAAAAmA/qu_AX129E-s/s320/Malay+weasel+Crocker+ii+3.jpg" width="320" /></a><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">Our extensive surveying of six forest
sites in Sabah, over four years, resulted in a measly 3 <a href="http://www.blogger.com/goog_425752923">banded linsang </a><i><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-g4EF7-Oip0I/TtYCGWP7UTI/AAAAAAAAAl4/IAEYZZoN-h0/s1600/Banded+linsang+Crocker+1.jpg" target="_blank">Prionodon linsang</a> </i>photographs. Although little known, it’s generally thought
that this little carnivore species is semi-arboreal, perhaps also skulking
around in dense bushy vegetation, waiting to pounce on small mammals and other
prey. So it’s not altogether surprising that these guys rarely show up in
camera trap surveys. However, despite having only checked about half of our cameras
so far we’ve already recorded linsang at 3 different ridgeline sites. Amazing! Perhaps the lack of a contiguous canopy
at these heights forces them to move more frequently along the ground? Who
knows – anyway it’s great to see these guys on camera. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">Another great result
is that of the Endangered <a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-Ncrudyhzx3w/TtSegod-zCI/AAAAAAAAAlY/I_o02-sORAw/s1600/Hoses+civet+Crocker+1.jpg" target="_blank">Hose’s civet Diplogalehosei</a>. This rarely detected Bornean endemic is thought to be associated
with mossy forests at higher altitudes, although a handful of (questionable?)
sightings in relatively low forest suggests that they may be more adaptable
than previously thought. So far we’ve detected Hose’s civet at three relatively
high level sites (867 -1280m), establishing the first confirmed record of this
civet in Crocker Range!! Let’s hope these guys keep getting snapped, so that we
can start piecing together some information regarding their ecology. Perhaps Crocker
would be the perfect place to start some in depth studies of this beastie… any takers? </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Last, but certainly not
least, is a personal favorite of mine, a tiny, brightly orange coloured
carnivore with a white head – the <a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-8iTuefsWBaQ/TtYC_Cq0JUI/AAAAAAAAAmA/qu_AX129E-s/s1600/Malay+weasel+Crocker+ii+3.jpg" target="_blank">Malay weasel <i>Mustela nudipes</i></a>. Although
thought to be relatively common throughout its range (<span class="apple-style-span"><span style="background-color: white;">southern
Thailand,</span> Peninsular Malaysia, Borneo and Sumatra)</span>, and
found in a range of habitats (we even recorded some in an oil palm plantation),
it is yet another Bornean carnivore that is rarely camera trapped. Why then are we recording them relatively
frequently (3 different sites so far) in Crocker? Although listed as Least Concern by the IUCN it
has never been studied. </span></div>
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unchecked cameras reveal!</span></div>
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<br />Andy Hearnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10405284067095591144noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4544483311990105105.post-17937055901429821792011-11-06T12:19:00.000+07:002011-12-07T21:57:05.110+07:00Yep, its pretty Steep! Research starts in Crocker Range<br />
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<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-9ETR6CH4K98/TrYWA848_iI/AAAAAAAAAk4/FhReUdUffuc/s1600/Crocker_range_landscape.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="260" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-9ETR6CH4K98/TrYWA848_iI/AAAAAAAAAk4/FhReUdUffuc/s320/Crocker_range_landscape.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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One month
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As usual, our first task was to begin planning where we will deploy the camera traps within the park, decisions which are ultimately based on maximizing the chances of capturing cloudeds and other wild cats on camera, as well by the logistics of physically getting there. Our plan is to spread 36 camera stations over 150km2 – no easy task even on relatively even forest, let alone a mountain range. From talking to Sabah Parks employees and local people it quickly became apparent that the Park is rarely accessed (at least on official/legal business) and thus established trails are therefore few and far between, particularly on the scale that we’ll be operating. </div>
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<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-2hT7LnPq7ns/TrYNo3soJyI/AAAAAAAAAko/I_TkNINeIbI/s1600/Crocker+Range_Senagang+River.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="242" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-2hT7LnPq7ns/TrYNo3soJyI/AAAAAAAAAko/I_TkNINeIbI/s320/Crocker+Range_Senagang+River.jpg" width="320" /></a>Our strategy, then, was to determine ridgeline formations from basic topographic maps, features which aid our movement and which we have demonstrated are used extensively by wild cats, transfer the spatial info onto our GPS units, and then follow the routes deep into the park, setting up cameras as we go. At this stage we had little idea of what the travel routes would be like, how open the forest would be, and thus how far we could reasonably expect to move each day. </div>
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<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-GI9Qb0VQcL0/TrYXhj8FF1I/AAAAAAAAAlA/z2E6iJs2y6Y/s1600/clouded+leopard+team.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="260" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-GI9Qb0VQcL0/TrYXhj8FF1I/AAAAAAAAAlA/z2E6iJs2y6Y/s320/clouded+leopard+team.jpg" width="320" /></a>So, loaded up with several days of food, camping gear, camera trapping gear and our trusty GPS the team headed up out of the village and climbed to the first of several ridgelines that would take us northwest, and into the park. Unfortunately, but unsurprisingly, this was no gentle introduction to Crocker’s forests, and after a slippery and relentless 400m ascent, and with burning muscles, we eventually reached the relatively even terrain of the ridgeline. Once there we were pleased by how relatively clear the forest was, and although the trekking was at times pretty tough, we moved swiftly and set eight camera stations and covered a distance of over 24km in 4 days. </div>
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Great! Well, kind of… Our rapid movement through the forest is largely because the routes we have been following are also being used by local poachers from surrounding villages, hence the relative openness. One month in, we have now covered over 150km of routes, and on all occasions, regardless of how deep into the forest we have travelled, we have always found signs of people, their camps, and snares and their shot gun cartridges. Clearly the use of the forest by poachers here, in terms of area, is extensive. What is less clear is how many people and how much poaching is occurring. We have found some great camera sites and are very optimistic of getting some wild cat photo captures, but the threat of camera theft by the poachers is very much playing on my mind. In the next few weeks we will begin checking our cameras… stay tuned for (eventual (-: )updates </div>
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<o:p></o:p></div>Andy Hearnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10405284067095591144noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4544483311990105105.post-88570850542413137412011-07-15T19:12:00.003+07:002011-12-07T21:58:11.433+07:00Volunteer field assistants needed for a Clouded leopard survey of the Crocker Range National Park<div class="MsoNormal">
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<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">We are now busy preparing for what is arguably going to be the most exciting, yet toughest of our challenges to date, an intensive, clouded leopard focused camera trap survey of the mountainous <a href="http://www.sabahparks.org.my/eng/crocker_range_park/default.asp">Crocker Range National Park</a>. </span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">To help us in our endeavour we are now offering volunteer placements for individuals to help us in the field starting September 2011. If you fancy experiencing the ‘real’ <a href="http://www.lonelyplanet.com/malaysia/malaysian-borneo-sabah">Bornean</a> rainforest, learning new skills and helping us learn about the elusive <a href="http://borneanwildcat.blogspot.com/p/focal-species.html">Sunda clouded leopard</a>, then read on...</span></div>
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<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-w8b3ZTIqfsI/TiAgJPMdDxI/AAAAAAAAAjc/FVMhUsSPEMQ/s1600/Rafflesia+pricei.+crocker.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; display: inline !important; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-w8b3ZTIqfsI/TiAgJPMdDxI/AAAAAAAAAjc/FVMhUsSPEMQ/s320/Rafflesia+pricei.+crocker.jpg" width="246" /></a><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">What/Why? </span></span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">Our work is focused on providing basic, yet scientifically sound information regarding the Sunda clouded leopard and <a href="http://borneanwildcat.blogspot.com/p/focal-species.html">other threatened felids</a> in Sabah to help guide viable conservation strategies </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">for these species. As such, one of the <a href="http://borneanwildcat.blogspot.com/p/about-programme.html">core questions</a> that we are attempting to answer is:</span></div>
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<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-avJhzXfcvaY/TiAtMZI8QwI/AAAAAAAAAjo/ImUC352sfK0/s1600/Map+of+Crocker+Range.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-avJhzXfcvaY/TiAtMZI8QwI/AAAAAAAAAjo/ImUC352sfK0/s320/Map+of+Crocker+Range.jpg" width="246" /></a><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><i><a href="http://borneanwildcat.blogspot.com/p/about-programme.html">What is the distribution and conservation status of Sunda clouded leopards and other felids throughout Sabah, and what factors affect their presence and abundance? </a></i></span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">To help address this question we have developed a research approach primarily constructed around multiple 6-month <a href="https://picasaweb.google.com/globalcanopy/BorneanWildCats#">camera trap surveys</a> designed to estimate clouded leopard densities and felid community structure in areas of forest exposed to different forest management strategies. </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">Few data exist regarding Bornean felid communities in higher altitude areas, and so from September onwards we will be deploying our camera traps in the hill Dipterocarp and lower montane forests of Sabah’s Crocker Range National Park.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">We are looking for volunteers to start as early as the beginning of September 2011, but positions will be available throughout the survey – ending in February 2012. You must be available to work on the project for a minimum of 1 month, although we will consider taking on candidates for shorter periods if they already have sufficient experience. Get in touch if you are interested and we’ll take it from there.</span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Where?</span></span></b></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">The Crocker Range National Park is located in the west coast of Sabah, Malaysian Borneo. At approximately 75km in length and 15km in width, it is the largest protected area in Sabah, comprising an area of 139,919ha, which is about twice the size of Singapore! Altitude across the park varies from around 100m to 2050m at the peak of Mt. Alab, and consequently the park is swathed in a dense blanket of primary hill Dipterocarp and lower montane forest, See the <a href="http://www.sabahparks.org.my/eng/crocker_range_park/default.asp">Sabah Park's website</a></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> for further details. </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">Volunteers will assist with all aspects of the project (see earlier posts on the blog for an idea of what we get up to), including, but not restricted to: mapping and creation of forest trails and incorporation of <a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-ZPwBDQUTGl0/TZv3rx3-yXI/AAAAAAAAAi0/vtivazHCVpI/s1600/Sepilok+map+for+blog.jpg">spatial data into a GIS</a>, deploying and checking <a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-6BVBIQJIA9g/TZHgC3wDC1I/AAAAAAAAAiw/xXRtD-SBCik/s1600/Sunda+clouded+leopard.+Neofelis+diardi.+Kinabatangan.jpg">camera traps</a> over an approximate area of 150km2 of forest, questionnaire surveys of local people, and <a href="http://borneanwildcat.blogspot.com/2010_09_01_archive.html">photographic data management</a>.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">We are ideally looking for candidates with (or currently undertaking) at least a first degree in an appropriate Natural Science, although this is by no means a prerequisite and we will happily consider keen individuals with a demonstrated interested in wildlife conservation. Above all else candidates should have a high level of fitness and a willingness to work in a challenging environment. The work will involve long and arduous hikes over difficult terrain, and will frequently necessitate camping for up to 6 nights at a time at remote locations, deep in the National Park. Volunteers must be able to carry 50+ litre rucksacks weighing upwards of 15kg. The ideal candidates will have some experience of the activities described above, although this is not essential as full training will be provided.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">We will not ask for any contribution towards project costs but you must be able to cover both your own transport costs to Kota Kinabalu, Sabah, and your subsistence costs (i.e., food and accommodation costs at field sites). </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">Contact me for more details of estimated costs. </span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Further questions</span></span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">For further information and to apply please <a href="mailto:ajhearn_@hotmail.com">email me</a></span></div>
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<br /></div>Andy Hearnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10405284067095591144noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4544483311990105105.post-53940435985244737572011-07-14T15:56:00.000+07:002011-12-07T22:00:29.123+07:00Are clouded leopards locally extinct in Sepilok?<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;">
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The usual suspects... A female leopard cat and her kitten, photographed close to</div>
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the border with an oil palm plantation. Leopard cats were the only species of </div>
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Rather worryingly our camera trap survey of the <a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-ZPwBDQUTGl0/TZv3rx3-yXI/AAAAAAAAAi0/vtivazHCVpI/s1600/Sepilok+map+for+blog.jpg">Kabili-Sepliok Forest Reserve</a> has failed to detect the Sunda clouded leopard. Is this a true reflection of the localised extinction of these felids in this small and relatively isolated forest block or simply our failure to detect what is actually there?</div>
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Camera trapping is undoubtedly a powerful research tool and can quickly produce indisputable evidence of a species’ presence in an area. Proving beyond doubt the absence of a species, however, is a rather more difficult affair, and the lack of any camera trap images obtained during a survey does not necessarily prove its absence. This is particularly true of difficult to detect species such as clouded leopards.</div>
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Stray dogs were found at multiple sites across the whole of the forest. </div>
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Could their presence be one causal factor in the absence of clouded leopards? </div>
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Nevertheless, this was a relatively intensive survey involving a high density of 35 paired cameras sites coupled with an additional 14 sites at which video camera traps were operational. This effort resulted in over 39,000 images and video sequences, including the similarly difficult to detect sun bear. Given this effort, in my opinion, we probably <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">would</i> have detected clouded leopard had they been present, and thus I am strongly inclined to conclude that they are no longer found in Sepliok. That is not to say that there are not any transient individuals moving through the area from time to time, but it seems unlikely to me that there is a resident population of animals living there. <br />
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Although unwelcome news, this is not altogether surprising given the fact that the forests in Sepliok have been reduced to about the size of a single clouded leopard’s home range – ca 40 km<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: xx-small;">2</span>. Although unwelcome, this finding is another piece in the puzzle to understand what factors control the distribution of this felid on Borneo.<br />
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Whilst it's not great news for Sepliok's Sunda clouded leopards, a number of Bornean carnivores were detected in this forest, including leopard cats, sun bears, common and banded palm civets, and yellow throated martens (see video sequence above). Potential prey species including mouse deer, yellow muntjac, sambar deer and bearded pigs were present in apparently good numbers.</div>
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Our team will now conduct an extensive questionnaire survey of the Sabah Wildlife and Forestry Department officers working in this area, in an attempt to determine when this species was reliably last seen. Meanwhile, we have recently moved our camera traps to an area of oil palm plantation immediately to the west of Sepilok, to investigate what species are using this highly modified habitat.</div>Andy Hearnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10405284067095591144noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4544483311990105105.post-9783526058638086462011-04-06T12:45:00.001+07:002011-12-07T22:02:42.713+07:00Next up – The Kabili-Sepilok Forest Reserve<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-6aufgFwHX4c/TZv4SU8v8zI/AAAAAAAAAi4/DxfiBc6tjZc/s1600/Andy+Tom+%2526+Jasz+on+log.P2180735.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="221" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-6aufgFwHX4c/TZv4SU8v8zI/AAAAAAAAAi4/DxfiBc6tjZc/s400/Andy+Tom+%2526+Jasz+on+log.P2180735.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Taking a well-earned rest whilst out surveying for trails in Sepilok. L-R,<br />
Jasz, Tom (volunteer) and me. Photo: Gilmore Belongon (on Tom's camera)</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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Our team cannot be accused of hanging around. Having unloaded the last of our gear from the Danau Girang Field Centre’s boat to our trusty truck, we waved goodbye to the mighty Kinabatangan river and set off in search of our next survey site: <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Kabili-Sepilok Forest Reserve</i>. </div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-ZPwBDQUTGl0/TZv3rx3-yXI/AAAAAAAAAi0/vtivazHCVpI/s1600/Sepilok+map+for+blog.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="400" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-ZPwBDQUTGl0/TZv3rx3-yXI/AAAAAAAAAi0/vtivazHCVpI/s400/Sepilok+map+for+blog.jpg" width="376" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Map of the Sepilok region and surrounding area. Clearly Sepilok is rather <br />
isolated, the only link to other forest areas being a tenuous link through<br />
a narrow corridor of mangrove forest. </td></tr>
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The Kabili-Sepilok Forest Reserve and the adjacent Sepilok Forest Reserve (typically collectively referred to as Sepilok) is an incredibly interesting forest. Home to the world famous Sepilok Orang Utan Rehabilitation Centre, and just a stone’s throw from Sabah’s second largest city, Sandakan, it is home to a diverse array of forest formations and wildlife. Hill Dipterocarp, riverine, Kerangas (heath), and mangrove forests all jostle for space in this relatively small (km<sup>2</sup>) and isolated forest fragment. And therein lies the potential problem for its felid inhabitants. Surrounding this matrix of forest, and forming the northern, eastern and western borders, is an assortment of anthropogenically modified habitats, predominated by oil palm, but also including orchards, industrial areas and housing (see below). Beyond the mangroves to the south lies the Sepilok Sea, and in the far south west corner a narrow corridor of mangrove links the Sepilok fragment to an extensive area of mangrove that reaches, albeit broken in places, to the mouth of the lower Kinabatangan. </div>
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Does this mangrove constitute a corridor connecting wild felid populations between Sepilok and the Kinabatangan, and if not, is Sepilok large enough to support viable populations of clouded leopards and other felids? What species of wild cat still persist here? Over the next few months we will attempt to shed light on these important questions. Wish us luck!</div>Andy Hearnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10405284067095591144noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4544483311990105105.post-85011898457829804372011-03-29T20:45:00.001+07:002011-03-29T21:19:07.914+07:00Insights from the Kinabatangan river<div class="MsoNormal"></div><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-Pdv56FH4EE4/TZHfnYKLUrI/AAAAAAAAAio/nNnylGdMFl8/s1600/Danau+girang.+Kinabatangan.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="264" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-Pdv56FH4EE4/TZHfnYKLUrI/AAAAAAAAAio/nNnylGdMFl8/s400/Danau+girang.+Kinabatangan.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Danau Girang, one of several Ox-bow lakes in the region<br />
and location of the Danua Girang Field Centre - our home from home.</td></tr>
</tbody></table><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">The opening days of 2011 witnessed the retrieval of the last of our camera traps from the forests of the Lower Kinabatangan Wildlife Reserve and the beginning of a new challenge – a camera trap survey of the Kabili-Sepilok Forest Reserve. </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">The survey of the Kinabatangan’s wild felids turned out to be a tough one; we suffered heavy losses of camera trap units – both as a result of people stealing them (presumably because they don’t want to be caught poaching), but also as a result of our aging camera population finally succumbing to the destructive (at least for electronics) powers of Borneo’s <u>rain</u>-forests (these particular cameras have been running since 2006 – so not a bad innings really).</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><br />
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">Despite these challenges we were able to come away with some very useful insights into the lives of the Kinabatangan’s felids:</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><br />
</div><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-6BVBIQJIA9g/TZHgC3wDC1I/AAAAAAAAAiw/xXRtD-SBCik/s1600/Sunda+clouded+leopard.+Neofelis+diardi.+Kinabatangan.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="264" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-6BVBIQJIA9g/TZHgC3wDC1I/AAAAAAAAAiw/xXRtD-SBCik/s400/Sunda+clouded+leopard.+Neofelis+diardi.+Kinabatangan.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">CLF3, one of three female clouded leopards detected in <br />
the Kinabatangan</td></tr>
</tbody></table><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">- The narrow corridors of forest along certain sections of the Kinabatangan are actively used by Bornean felids – extension and development of such corridors could thus be a useful tool in the conservation of these cats in this highly fragmented landscape.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">- Initial analyses suggest that Sunda Clouded leopard and marbled cat likely exist at lower densities here than elsewhere in Sabah, such as the extensive and comparatively contiguous forests of the Yayasan Sabah Management Area. </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">- We have found no evidence of Bornean bay cat in these lowland forests.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">- Whilst flat-headed cat have been recorded, low photographic capture rates suggest that even here, one of the areas highlighted as prime habitat for this species (Wilting et al 2010), these felids are found at low densities.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-lqwpHzbZFdc/TZHfyzWiZVI/AAAAAAAAAis/azOpDoREvSM/s1600/Marbled+cat+pardofelis+marmorata.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="264" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-lqwpHzbZFdc/TZHfyzWiZVI/AAAAAAAAAis/azOpDoREvSM/s400/Marbled+cat+pardofelis+marmorata.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">One of only two photo-captures of marbled cat. </td></tr>
</tbody></table><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">As ever though, our initial work in this unique area has raised more questions than answers, and we are now making steps to kick-off a study of the spatial ecology of these cats as part of a larger programme investigating Bornean Carnivore community ecology. Stay tuned for more details in the near future. Well OK, not too near, going by my previous history of updating this blog... <br />
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I'll end with a big thank you to the staff and PTY students at the Danau Girang Field Centre, who have been amazing at supporting our wild cat work here in the Kina. Also a big thank you to to Drs David Macdonald and Luke Hunter for their invaluable advice, and all our project funders, and particularly<span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"> </span>to the Kaplan- Recanti family, <a href="http://www.panthera.org/">Panthera</a>, and the <a href="http://www.cloudedleopard.org/">Clouded Leopard Project</a></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><br />
</div>Andy Hearnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10405284067095591144noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4544483311990105105.post-61549185679155421212010-09-28T23:05:00.000+07:002010-09-28T23:05:51.661+07:00Kinabatangan's clouded leopards reveal themselves<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: justify;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_SauiMmcYaEo/TKEFxXH769I/AAAAAAAAAg8/w7_KwHmnHGY/s1600/kina+cloudeds+copy.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="400" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_SauiMmcYaEo/TKEFxXH769I/AAAAAAAAAg8/w7_KwHmnHGY/s400/kina+cloudeds+copy.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #999999;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Sunda clouded leopards recently photographed in the </span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #999999;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Kinabatangan </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #999999;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Wildife Sanctaury</span></span></div></td></tr>
</tbody></table><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">After a rather slow start, the number of wild cat photo captures from the Lower Kinabatangan Wildlife Sanctuary and surrounding forests are starting to mount up. Our focal species, the Sunda clouded leopard, appears to have been particularly busy along Sabah’s largest river since I last wrote, and we have now collected nine photo captures, of five separate events. Careful observation of the photos (see left) reveals that so far we have recorded 1 male, and two females.</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"></span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><div style="text-align: justify;"><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_SauiMmcYaEo/TKEGvhf2pnI/AAAAAAAAAhE/fI640WgyxAs/s1600/corridor+from+ridge.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="264" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_SauiMmcYaEo/TKEGvhf2pnI/AAAAAAAAAhE/fI640WgyxAs/s400/corridor+from+ridge.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><div style="text-align: justify;"><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #999999;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">A</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> sliver of forest adjacent to the Kinabatangan river. </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #999999;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Such </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #999999;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">narrow </span></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #999999;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">strips </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #999999;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">of riparian </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #999999;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">forest may act as corridors </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #999999;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">for </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #999999;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">threatened </span></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #999999;"></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #999999;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">species </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #999999;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">such </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #999999;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">as </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #999999;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Bornean felids, and provide </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #999999;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">essential linkages </span></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #999999;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">for otherwise fragmented </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #999999;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">blocks of forest</span></span></div></div></td></tr>
</tbody></table>The female clouded leopards were snapped close to the banks of Danau Tongog, a beautiful oxbow lake to the west of our study area. Both individuals were photographed approximately 1 km apart, walking along a well-worn forest trail that encircles the lake, which is frequently used by staff and tourists of the nearby community-run tourist facility, the Tongog Ecocamp. These photo-captures lend further support to our theory that existing trails, even those regularly frequented by people, are one of the best locations to detect Sunda clouded leopards with camera traps.<br />
<br />
One of these females, CLF1, was also photographed moving through a relatively narrow band (<i>ca.</i> 100 m wide) of riparian forest in Lot 5, which is sandwiched between the river and the surrounding oil palm plantations. This location is close to where we previously observed a flat-headed cat whilst spotlighting (detailed in <a href="http://www.catsg.org/catnews/20_cat-news-website/home/index_en.htm">Hearn et al 2010</a>), and thus provides some of the first evidence that such riparian forest buffers may be utilised by Bornean felids, and may thus provide essential connectivity between otherwise isolated forest fragments along the Kinabatangan. The potential role of forest corridors as a tool for Bornean carnivore conservation is something that we aim to explore further during our new project, the <i>Kinabatangan Carnivore Programme</i>.</div></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> </span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"></span><br />
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<div><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-bottom: 0.5em; padding-bottom: 6px; padding-left: 6px; padding-right: 6px; padding-top: 6px; text-align: left;"><tbody>
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</tbody></table></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><span id="goog_1859288745"></span><span id="goog_1859288746"></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div>Andy Hearnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10405284067095591144noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4544483311990105105.post-55216402294187727682010-09-07T10:21:00.000+07:002011-10-08T12:28:08.117+07:00Two more cat photos!!<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_SauiMmcYaEo/TIWpYGKguLI/AAAAAAAAAgc/epw18Htea6Y/s1600/2nd+FHC.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: justify;"><img border="0" height="267" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_SauiMmcYaEo/TIWpYGKguLI/AAAAAAAAAgc/epw18Htea6Y/s400/2nd+FHC.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Our second flat-headed cat photo. Frustratingly, the other camera failed to <br />
pick up the cat.</td></tr>
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Great news... we’ve got two more wild cat photos from the Kinabatangan! We’re still busy surveying the forest and cutting trails in the second of our two sub areas, and so we’ve only found the time to check the cameras once so far, but members of our team (volunteers from Cardiff University) checked one of the camera sites yesterday and discovered two more cat photos... a leopard cat and yet another flat-headed cat!</div>
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Interestingly, both of the new cat photos were from the very same site that we had previously photo-captured the flat-headed – an area of riverine forest, close to the main river, in one of the of the region’s larger forest fragments: Lot 5. This bodes well for our planned radio-tracking project (more on this later) as this could well be an excellent site to deploy a live trap. The photo is not ideal, so it is difficult to determine the sex or whether if it is the same individual as the previous photo. </div>
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Alas, no <a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-akSVpSJbvY0/TiAey45DLpI/AAAAAAAAAjY/1Rr7Ni9nmJA/s1600/Sunda+clouded+leopard+from+Tabin.jpg">Sunda clouded leopard</a> so far, but as I say we’ve only checked the camera once so far, so fingers crossed.</div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_SauiMmcYaEo/TIWrvTC0nZI/AAAAAAAAAgk/-OdGElEwJ68/s1600/first+Kina+leopard+cat.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="267" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_SauiMmcYaEo/TIWrvTC0nZI/AAAAAAAAAgk/-OdGElEwJ68/s400/first+Kina+leopard+cat.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://borneanwildcat.blogspot.com/p/focal-species.html">A leopard cat</a>. This adaptable species is thought to respond well to habitat disturbance,<br />
and unlike the other 4 Bornean felids can be found residing in oil palm plantations. <br />
It's a little surprising then, that this is our first photo of this species - but again it is early days. </td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_SauiMmcYaEo/TIWtYozVW7I/AAAAAAAAAgs/-Wr6itjZ-10/s1600/Kina+team+photo.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="267" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_SauiMmcYaEo/TIWtYozVW7I/AAAAAAAAAgs/-Wr6itjZ-10/s400/Kina+team+photo.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The Bornean wild cat Team. Right to left: Andy (tingi) Harrison <br />
(volunteer from Cardiff Univ.), Gilmoore (Gil) Bolongon, Saya (me), and Jasmi (Jasz) Joroh. </td></tr>
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Andy Hearnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10405284067095591144noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4544483311990105105.post-48141060105772217592010-08-28T10:07:00.001+07:002010-08-28T10:15:49.543+07:00First wild cat photo from Kinabatangan!<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_SauiMmcYaEo/THh3-rZipBI/AAAAAAAAAf8/767QJhHmrBg/s1600/Kina+flatty+1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_SauiMmcYaEo/THh3-rZipBI/AAAAAAAAAf8/767QJhHmrBg/s320/Kina+flatty+1.jpg" width="0" /></a></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_SauiMmcYaEo/THh70QrpurI/AAAAAAAAAgM/eCw1aGn9Kw0/s1600/Kina+flatty+1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="282" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_SauiMmcYaEo/THh70QrpurI/AAAAAAAAAgM/eCw1aGn9Kw0/s400/Kina+flatty+1.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Our first wild cat photo- capture - a flat-headed cat</td></tr>
</tbody></table>Three years of intensive camera trapping in our previous five Sabah field sites resulted in photographic captures of leopard cat (1000+), Sunda Clouded leopard (300+), marbled cat (100+), and bay cat (30). Over the same period we obtained just a single photograph of the elusive flat-headed cat, which was snapped just a few hundred metres from the Danum Valley Field Centre buildings! Indeed, throughout the historical range of this species (Peninsular Thailand and Malaysia, Borneo and Sumatra) the flatty is infrequently recorded, raising concern as to its current status.<br />
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<div style="text-align: justify;">So with this in mind, we were particularly delighted, whilst checking our freshly deployed cameras in the Kinabatangan, to discover our first cat photo.... yep, a flat-headed cat! He/she was photographed close to the main Kinabatangan river, in a stretch of riparian forest. Hopefully this is the first of many felid photos to come! </div></div><div style="text-align: auto;"><div style="text-align: auto;"><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">So far we've also captured several images of sun bears.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>Andy Hearnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10405284067095591144noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4544483311990105105.post-11093105714535666902010-08-20T09:31:00.004+07:002011-10-08T12:33:10.975+07:00First survey underway... The Lower Kinabatangan Wildlife Sanctuary<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">To kick off our <a href="http://borneanwildcat.blogspot.com/p/about-programme.html">new programme </a>we are starting with an intense camera trap survey of the Lower Kinabatangan Wildlife Sanctuary (LKWS), a protected, but highly fragmented and degraded collection of forest patches along Sabah’s mighty Kinabatangan river. Managed by the <a href="http://www.wildlife.sabah.gov.my/">Sabah Wildlife Department</a>, the LKWS is one of the few remaining examples of lowland forest in Sabah, and consists of a range of lowland forest formations, including permanently inundated and seasonally flooded swamp forests, riparian and lowland Dipterocarp forest. However, much of the region’s forests have been cleared for oil palm<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"> </i>development and the remaining forests of the LKWS are now highly fragmented. </span></span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">Nevertheless, as a Wildlife Sanctuary the area is a focal point for conservation in Sabah, and contains important populations of numerous threatened species; a recent study of the potential distrbution of the flat-headed cat (<a href="http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0009612">Wilting et al, 2010</a>) and some recent observations (<a href="http://www.catsg.org/catnews/20_cat-news-website/home/index_en.htm">Hearn et al, 2010</a>) suggest that the LKWS is an important area for the conservation of this felid. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_SauiMmcYaEo/TF_lRMZN8dI/AAAAAAAAAf0/1DhIKPo4XPQ/s1600/Figure+1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="345" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_SauiMmcYaEo/TF_lRMZN8dI/AAAAAAAAAf0/1DhIKPo4XPQ/s400/Figure+1.jpg" width="400" /></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">Our focal aim will be to determine the density of <a href="http://borneanwildcat.blogspot.com/p/focal-species.html">Sunda clouded leopards</a> in this unique habitat, but the cameras will also provide vital information regarding the other members of the Bornean felid guild, as well as other wildlife. </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">Additional key questions that we’ll attempt to answer are: how do clouded leopard and other wild felids persist in this fragmented habitat; can they move between non-contiguous forest blocks, and how effective are the existing riparian corridors at facilitating the movement of animals? </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">Following our model that we’ve developed over the last four years, we will spend approximately six months surveying the region’s forests patches, cutting trails and setting camera at a total of 70 sites.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">Our team have now arrived at our new home from home, the Danau Girang Field Centre, which is located in the Lot 6 of the LKWS.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">The centre is jointly managed by Cardiff University and the Sabah Wildlife Department, both of whom are providing us with exceptional logistical support.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">Wish us luck!!</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></div>
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Andy Hearnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10405284067095591144noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4544483311990105105.post-72880791615242981842010-05-03T20:44:00.002+07:002010-05-03T20:48:52.418+07:00Evolution of a project...<div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_SauiMmcYaEo/S97RkgjLcxI/AAAAAAAAAYk/b19-F9AFL94/s1600/leopard+cat+1+crop.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><img border="0" height="300" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_SauiMmcYaEo/S97RkgjLcxI/AAAAAAAAAYk/b19-F9AFL94/s400/leopard+cat+1+crop.jpg" tt="true" width="400" /></span></a><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">After more than three years of hard work the ‘Bornean Wild Cats & Clouded Leopard Project’ is sadly drawing to a close. The Parangs (local style machete) have been placed back in their sheaths, the camera traps removed from the forest, and we’re now busy translating the hard won data into tangible conservation science.</span></div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><br />
</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">But alas this is not the end of our project; Borneo’s wild cats remain threatened, and there is still much to learn about them in order to help develop appropriate management and conservation actions. Rather this is the closing of the first chapter, and the beginning of the next, for the project is evolving into the: ‘Bornean Clouded Leopard Programme’. </span></div><br />
<div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The Global Canopy Programme have now handed the reins over to the WildCRU, at the University of Oxford, who, having previously been the scientific advisor to the project, will now be the lead partner in our new programme. Please check back here soon for details of our new programme. </span></div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><br />
</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">So at the dawning of our new endeavour we’d like take a step back and offer a big thank you to all those that have supported the project and shared our desire to help begin shedding light on this unique, but little known guild of Bornean felids. </span></div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_SauiMmcYaEo/S97SsRwHcOI/AAAAAAAAAYs/UUPJIL0-EcQ/s1600/A+J+and+K+up+Danum+tower.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="250" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_SauiMmcYaEo/S97SsRwHcOI/AAAAAAAAAYs/UUPJIL0-EcQ/s400/A+J+and+K+up+Danum+tower.jpg" tt="true" width="400" /></a><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">We thank the many organisations that have provided financial support, and in particular, we thank the UK Government’s Darwin Initiative, who provided the core funding to our previous work in Sabah. We thank our research assistants and the volunteers that helped us with the often challenging fieldwork. A big thank you to the host country organisations that have supported us and given us permission to carry out the project, including the Yayasan Sabah, Sabah Wildlife Department, DVMC, Economic Planning Unit, and of course our project partners at the ITBC, Universiti Malaysia Sabah. Sincere thanks go to our project counterpart, Dr Henry Bernard, and the Royal Society SEARRP’s Dr Glen Reynolds, who both provided invaluable logistical and technical assistance, and also a friendly ear.</span></div></div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Lastly we offer a big thank you to the Global Canopy Programme’s Andrew Mitchell and Katherine Secoy, both for doing a sterling job at managing the project and for seeing the potential in two eager Conservation Biologists, desperate to start a wild cat conservation project in Borneo. </span><br />
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<span style="color: #999999; font-family: Arial; font-size: x-small;">(Photos: Top: A leopard cat photographed at the Danum Valley Field Station - one of the projects very first cat photos - we now have well over a thousand! Bottom: Andy, Katherine Secoy and Jo, overlooking the Danum Valley canopy.)</span>Andy Hearnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10405284067095591144noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4544483311990105105.post-16251069762854163232010-01-17T01:34:00.004+07:002010-05-03T00:08:20.163+07:00Identifying individual cloudys...<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
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<div style="text-align: justify;">Great news from the field… we’ve discovered yet another male Sunda clouded leopard, which means that we can now identify at least six males and two females from our study area in Tabin. I say ‘at least’ because for some of these guys we only have photographs of one side of the animal, which means that we cannot be 100% sure that some of the photographs are not from the same individual. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">The photo above is a collage of all of our cloudys we’ve discovered so far in Tabin. As with other felids each clouded leopard has a distinct coat pattern which we can use to tell individuals apart. Clouded leopards share many features of their coat pattern, but close inspection of the size and shape of individual’s clouds and spots will reveal key differences. Surprisingly, we’re finding that there may be less variability in the coat morphology of Tabin’s clouded leopards (see photo). Could this be the result of reduced gene pool? We've also noticed that coat and tail morphology may differ between male and female clouded leopards, but that's a story for another day...</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">To aid in the ID’ing of these beasties we use ‘Photoshop’ to produce a tightly cropped image of both left and right sides (if we have them) of each animal. If needed, we can use the programme to sharpen the image or increase contrast etc. This reference collection can then be used to identify new cloudy photos as and when they come in.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
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</div>Andy Hearnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10405284067095591144noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4544483311990105105.post-38336769960015304262009-12-09T22:30:00.005+07:002010-05-03T01:20:38.164+07:00New clouded leopard identified from Tabin!<div style="text-align: justify;"><div style="text-align: justify;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="color: #999999; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">The latest cloudie to be identified at Tabin - Clouded leopard Male 4. </span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="color: #999999; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">Although the </span><span style="color: #999999; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">photograph is a little blurry it is good </span><span style="color: #999999; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"> enough to enable </span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="color: #999999; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">unequivocal identifiaction.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_SauiMmcYaEo/Sx-7KPRkyHI/AAAAAAAAAMY/WtUrbJFChk8/s1600-h/CL+M4+Tabin+36b+xxx+crop.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; cssfloat: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" ps="true" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_SauiMmcYaEo/Sx-7KPRkyHI/AAAAAAAAAMY/WtUrbJFChk8/s400/CL+M4+Tabin+36b+xxx+crop.jpg" /></a><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">We’re delighted to announce that our hard work at Tabin appears to be paying off, with the exciting discovery of some new clouded leopard photographs. The latest check of cameras has revealed a new, previously unknown, clouded leopard male, and yet more photographs of our far from camera shy Male 3. The new photographs come as somewhat of a relief to our team as not only is it a pleasure to see these spectacular animals but it is also essential to get as many photographs as possible during our survey period in order for us </span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">to do some real conservation science and to generate a robust estimate of the density of these little known cats.</div></div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><br />
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</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; text-align: justify;"><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_SauiMmcYaEo/Sx-6eDxt08I/AAAAAAAAAMQ/JSqvM6IqC7Y/s1600-h/CLM3+Tabin+29a+xxxxx+crop.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" ps="true" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_SauiMmcYaEo/Sx-6eDxt08I/AAAAAAAAAMQ/JSqvM6IqC7Y/s400/CLM3+Tabin+29a+xxxxx+crop.jpg" /></a><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The new male was photographed along ‘Jalan Raya Bagus’, the old abandoned logging road, which, as mentioned in an earlier post, was one of our most promising camera locations. We now know that at least three different clouded leopard males are using this trail.</span></div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><br />
</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">We’ve also obtained photographs of Male 3, who is proving to be a bit of a star and has now been photographed at 5 different locations over a range of approximately 25 square kilometres. Male 3 must have been in a particularly curious mood as he decided to hang around the camera station for about two minutes and was snapped a total of eight times</span></div></div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; text-align: justify;"><br />
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</div>Andy Hearnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10405284067095591144noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4544483311990105105.post-92180196941219423702009-10-23T09:17:00.002+07:002009-10-23T19:49:47.941+07:00Bears, elephants, and thieves<div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; text-align: justify;">Camera trappers around the world will be familiar with the feeling of nervous anticipation each and every time they go to check a camera trap in the field. Thoughts race through your head as you reach the final bend in the trail before setting sight on the camera trap.... are the batteries still OK, has it been damaged, is it even still there? <br />
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</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; text-align: justify;">And so it was this week when we arrived to check camera site 22, situated uncomfortably close to the main road along Tabin’s western border, which is frequented by plantation workers and the occasional poacher alike. To our dismay both cameras were gone, presumably stolen by poachers. Pieces of plastic from one of the cameras littered the floor, but otherwise there was no trace of the cameras and the invaluable data they contained. The tree that one of the cameras was attached to had been cut down with a parang (local machete).<br />
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</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_SauiMmcYaEo/SuEOVRIrFdI/AAAAAAAAALg/b6BLzOQM7zw/s1600-h/poachers+on+core+rd.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_SauiMmcYaEo/SuEOVRIrFdI/AAAAAAAAALg/b6BLzOQM7zw/s400/poachers+on+core+rd.jpg" vr="true" /></a><br />
</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; text-align: center;"><span style="color: #999999; font-size: x-small;">Poaching – Borneo style. The main quarry targeted are Samba deer, muntjac, and </span><span style="color: #999999; font-size: x-small;">bearded pig. Thankfully the number of poachers using the core road appears </span><span style="color: #999999; font-size: x-small;">low, but the threat remains.</span><br />
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The loss of a single pair of cameras, although frustrating, should not have too detrimental an affect on our survey, but the loss of further cameras could be a real problem. We also recently photographed poachers on the main core road (photo above) that runs through the centre of Tabin. An individual can be seen standing in the back of a Toyota Hylux, spotlight in hand. Thankfully these guys left the cameras alone.<br />
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</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; text-align: justify;">Borneo’s wildlife also give us sleepless nights when it comes to causing havoc with the cameras. The ubiquitous elephants are a frequent thorn in our side, typically knocking cameras over, but also on occasion ripping them out of the ground and walking away with them. Over the years we’ve developed a number of anti elephant-damage measures, of varying success, but thankfully Tabin’s elephants have been relatively kind so far. In a previous survey of Malua Forest Reserve the elephants were particularly aggressive, frequently knocking over, and occasionally “stealing” cameras! <br />
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</div><div class="separator" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_SauiMmcYaEo/SuEPAs1ssAI/AAAAAAAAAMA/Kvn1A_o2TQU/s1600-h/Ele+on+volcanoe+trail.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_SauiMmcYaEo/SuEPAs1ssAI/AAAAAAAAAMA/Kvn1A_o2TQU/s400/Ele+on+volcanoe+trail.JPG" vr="true" /></a><br />
</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; text-align: center;"><span style="color: #999999; font-size: x-small;">One of Tabin’s elephants; we arrived 20 mins after this photo was taken to check the camera.</span><br />
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</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; text-align: justify;">And now a new contender for the No.1 nuisance animal may be emerging – the sun bear. In the past we’ve had little trouble from the world’s smallest bear species, but just recently a bear took a dislike to two of our cameras and ripped them off their respective trees, resulting in a large hole in the casings, and then preceded to chew on the box, despite the metal spikes that jut out from the case at multiple angles. He returned days later to finish off what he started and to destroy the remaining camera. Let’s just hope that this is a one-off, and that he was just having a bad day.<br />
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</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_SauiMmcYaEo/SuEO3oBoj-I/AAAAAAAAAL4/d7MLzCJ_Q-s/s1600-h/1.+bear+left+.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_SauiMmcYaEo/SuEO3oBoj-I/AAAAAAAAAL4/d7MLzCJ_Q-s/s400/1.+bear+left+.jpg" vr="true" /></a><br />
</div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #999999; font-size: x-small;">The sun bear spots the camera and immediately makes a bee-line for it.<br />
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</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_SauiMmcYaEo/SuEOu1j0jWI/AAAAAAAAALw/sQaWQtQZnVs/s1600-h/2.+Good+night+vienna.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_SauiMmcYaEo/SuEOu1j0jWI/AAAAAAAAALw/sQaWQtQZnVs/s400/2.+Good+night+vienna.jpg" vr="true" /></a><br />
</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; text-align: center;"><span style="color: #999999; font-size: x-small;">Bear-cam….. Good night Vienna! The final photographs from the camera as it is mauled by the irate sun bear.</span><br />
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</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_SauiMmcYaEo/SuEOm0QUiVI/AAAAAAAAALo/4yY8awk_z4c/s1600-h/3.+bear.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_SauiMmcYaEo/SuEOm0QUiVI/AAAAAAAAALo/4yY8awk_z4c/s400/3.+bear.jpg" vr="true" /></a><br />
</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; text-align: center;"><span style="color: #999999; font-size: x-small;">The bear returns days later and has his fun with the broken camera before taking-out the remaining camera.</span><br />
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</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; text-align: justify;">The cameras didn’t stand a chance! These two will likely be winging their way to the new clouded leopard exhibit at Point Defiance Zoo, as part of the <a href="http://www.cloudedleopard.org/">Clouded leopard Project’s</a> (CLP) education display.<br />
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</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; text-align: justify;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_SauiMmcYaEo/SuEYtGv2MhI/AAAAAAAAAMI/gJbtda-gRkg/s1600-h/Bear+damaged+cuddebacks.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_SauiMmcYaEo/SuEYtGv2MhI/AAAAAAAAAMI/gJbtda-gRkg/s320/Bear+damaged+cuddebacks.jpg" vr="true" /></a><br />
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</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; text-align: justify;"><span style="color: red;">NEWS FLASH.</span><br />
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</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Since writing this blog it seems as though the bear-trashed cameras may in fact pull through, despite both being full of water for several days. The exposure seems to be affected, but they may be fine during the night and as a back-up? Sorry Karen (CLP), but we have many more broken cameras!<br />
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</div>Andy Hearnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10405284067095591144noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4544483311990105105.post-4360303875863668462009-10-19T16:38:00.002+07:002009-10-19T17:10:00.970+07:00First wild cat photos from Tabin!<div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; text-align: justify;">After two months of seriously tough work setting up the first block of camera traps we are delighted to inform you that we are beginning to see results, including photos of leopard cats, marbled cats and clouded leopards! <br />
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</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; text-align: justify;">As expected, the first wild cat photograph that we captured at Tabin was of a leopard cat. Since then we have captured a further 19 Leopard cats on camera, mainly along the core road, but also along some of the abandoned logging roads and some of our freshly cut trails. <br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_SauiMmcYaEo/StwwYnf05yI/AAAAAAAAAKQ/soIdVmxUMrM/s1600-h/Leopard+cat+LC+3+Tabin+8a+0001.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_SauiMmcYaEo/StwwYnf05yI/AAAAAAAAAKQ/soIdVmxUMrM/s400/Leopard+cat+LC+3+Tabin+8a+0001.jpg" vr="true" /></a><br />
</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; text-align: center;"><span style="color: #999999; font-size: x-small;">Leopard cat photographed on the core road at 7:25 pm. </span><br />
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</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; text-align: justify;">To date we have captured five independent (i.e. taken at different times) photographs of clouded leopards, two from the core road that runs through the reserve, two from an old logging road (jalan Raya bagus). Unfortunately, on all occasions only one camera out of the pair photographed the cat, meaning that we have only either left or right sided photos – not both – as we desperately need in order to identify individual animals unambiguously. Nevertheless, from comparing only left sides we can tell that that we have at least three different animals – all males.<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_SauiMmcYaEo/StwxLkGRavI/AAAAAAAAAKY/k2cOYRtly10/s1600-h/CL+M2+Tabin+36b+crop.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_SauiMmcYaEo/StwxLkGRavI/AAAAAAAAAKY/k2cOYRtly10/s400/CL+M2+Tabin+36b+crop.jpg" vr="true" /></a><br />
</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; text-align: justify;"><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; text-align: center;"><span style="color: #999999; font-size: x-small;">Clouded leopard Male 2 or Mr Fish (Jo thinks he has a fish shape marking or cloud, on his side) </span><br />
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</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; text-align: justify;">Surprisingly, we have captured four independent photos of two individual marbled cats, both female. I say surprisingly because it is very rare to get this species on camera. These two were photographed at a single site along a trail that we created from new. On all but one occasion the marbled cats were walking directly along the path that we had previously swept clean, leading us to tentatively assume that our trail cutting and sweeping have encouraged these cats to use the trail. <br />
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</div><div class="separator" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_SauiMmcYaEo/StwxV5paqyI/AAAAAAAAAKg/MVh82Wf-0V4/s1600-h/Marbled+CDY_0023.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_SauiMmcYaEo/StwxV5paqyI/AAAAAAAAAKg/MVh82Wf-0V4/s400/Marbled+CDY_0023.jpg" vr="true" /></a><span style="font-size: xx-small;"><br />
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</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #999999; font-size: x-small;">A female marbled cat photographed along a “purpose-built” trail. </span><br />
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This is a great start to the survey, let’s hope that the good luck continues! <br />
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</div>Andy Hearnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10405284067095591144noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4544483311990105105.post-7963153562007557972009-09-29T16:38:00.004+07:002009-10-19T16:51:04.769+07:00Finding 74 needles in a haystack - the search for camera sites is on<div style="text-align: justify;">An understatement….. estimating the density of Sunda clouded leopards using camera traps isn't easy! <br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">In addition to the physical challenges of deploying and repeatedly checking the network of cameras the statistical framework to estimate density requires that several (ideally at least 10) different cloudies are photo-trapped on more than one occasion (as many as possible). However, getting a cloudie on camera can be a rare event, requiring as much as 200 camera trap nights* to get a single photograph. Randomly placing your cameras will almost certainly result in zero photo-captures! <br />
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</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Clearly, finding the best locations to situate the cameras is of vital importance, and, ultimately will make the difference between a successful or unsuccessful density survey. A sobering thought! The problem is, finding the perfect camera site is like looking for a needle in a rather large haystack, and finding 74 such sites is a real challenge. <br />
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<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_SauiMmcYaEo/StsLbdtIfyI/AAAAAAAAAJQ/m7-fWyOsnXg/s1600-h/Team+and+truck+near+Jn+Raya+Bagus.jpg"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5393917545164603170" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_SauiMmcYaEo/StsLbdtIfyI/AAAAAAAAAJQ/m7-fWyOsnXg/s400/Team+and+truck+near+Jn+Raya+Bagus.jpg" style="cursor: hand; display: block; height: 300px; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; width: 400px;" /></a><br />
<div style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #666666; font-size: x-small;">The Bornean Wild Cat Team, after a hard day cutting trails. Left to right: Jo, Sajaril (Itoi), </span><br />
</div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #666666; font-size: x-small;">Remy, and Jasmi (Jas), (Andy -taking photograph).</span><br />
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<div style="text-align: justify;">Fortunately we have nearly 3 years of experience to help guide us, and there are certain tricks that we’ve learned along the way. For starters, when surveying for Sunda clouded leopards in Bornean forest old logging roads are like gold-dust. We’ve found that they can be prime locations to photo-trap cloudies and, in addition, they provide us (and, unfortunately, poachers) with much needed access to the forest interior. We’ve discovered that cloudies tend to favour travel routes that require less effort; natural ridgelines and well worn existing human trails (ideally relatively dry underfoot) can be hot-spots for cloudie activity, although these associations may also be related to hunting success. <br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Thus, on arrival in Tabin our first priority was to survey the area for existing (i.e. still drivable) and abandoned (i.e, not drivable and swathed in recovering forest) logging roads. We discovered two existing roads, one running north-south along Tabin’s western border and one running west-east for about 10 km through the centre of Tabin. The first road is used extensively by plantation contractors, and so the risk of theft would be too high to deploy cameras here, but it will provide much needed access along the Western border. Despite also posing a theft risk (although to a lesser degree) the second “Core Area” road will almost certainly be a clouded leopard hotspot and will thus be of such intrinsic value, in terms of getting photo-captures, that we will have to run the risk and have decided to place six camera pairs along its ca 10km length.<br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">The search for abandoned logging roads is very much more a hit or miss affair, requiring plenty of guesswork and a lot of luck. We start by looking at a very course-scale topographic map of Tabin and try to guess where the old logging roads were built, typically along flat areas, ridges etc. and we then go out on foot and try to locate them. Frequently our searches come up empty handed, and we simply try to plot a course through the forest to the approximate area that we need a camera. We then search the area for the best location, set up the cameras, and then cut a 200m section of trail, centred on the cameras. We even sweep the trail clear of leaf litter and other debris, in an attempt to “persuade” the cloudies to use the trail.<br />
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<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_SauiMmcYaEo/StsLb72bT6I/AAAAAAAAAJY/yPo-si_OiZA/s1600-h/Itoi+%26+Jas+on+quad.jpg"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5393917553256648610" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_SauiMmcYaEo/StsLb72bT6I/AAAAAAAAAJY/yPo-si_OiZA/s400/Itoi+%26+Jas+on+quad.jpg" style="cursor: hand; display: block; height: 300px; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; width: 400px;" /></a><br />
<div style="text-align: center;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #666666; font-size: x-small;">Four wheeled drive vehicles and ATVs are a must for survey work in Borneo. </span><br />
</div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #666666; font-size: x-small;">New team member, Jas (L) and Sajaril (R).</span><br />
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So how are we getting on? Well, as of the end of September we have already finished setting the first 37 camera sites – which required cutting over 60km of trail! We have been successful in finding several old logging roads, some good (e.g. one we’ve named Jalan Raya bagus = great logging road) and some not so good. We’ve found several very promising ridglines and are very optimistic. <strong>Watch this space for news of how we get on!</strong><br />
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<span style="color: #666666; font-size: x-small;">*A camera trap night is a unit of trapping effort. One camera trap night is equal to one camera operating for a 24hr period; so 10 cameras operating for 10 days equals 100 camera trap nights.</span>Andy Hearnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10405284067095591144noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4544483311990105105.post-37982207564649581002009-09-17T10:42:00.002+07:002009-10-19T19:18:13.708+07:00Felid survey of Tabin Wildlife Reserve underway<div style="text-align: justify;">Having successfully completed felid surveys of the Danum Valley, Ulu Segama and Malua Forest Reserves, and the Danum Palm plantation, we are now focusing our attention to the wild cats within the Tabin Wildlife Reserve. Tabin is a large (1205.2 km2) area of predominantly logged over lowland Dipterocarp forest (logging ceased in 1989) with a central primary forest area of approximately 20.1 km2.<br />
</div><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5393531882103706610" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_SauiMmcYaEo/Stmsq62JE_I/AAAAAAAAAJA/FJLjk8m2tAQ/s400/Tabin+Map.jpg" style="cursor: hand; display: block; height: 400px; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; width: 396px;" /> <br />
<div align="center"><span style="color: #999999; font-size: 78%;">Map of Eastern Sabah, showing the Tabin Wildlife Reserve and commercial forest reserves to the north.</span><br />
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What makes Tabin particularly interesting is that it is almost* completely surrounded by a vast area of oil palm and cocoa plantations, and there are a number of human settlements in the immediate vicinity. All five species of Bornean wild cat are believed to be found in Tabin, although we know very little about the status of these felids in this reserve. Thus, Tabin serves as an ideal location in which to investigate wild cat status and use of these altered habitats.<br />
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<img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5393531890670150466" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_SauiMmcYaEo/Stmsrawio0I/AAAAAAAAAJI/fixPk8g3ACY/s400/Tabin+hostel.jpg" style="cursor: hand; display: block; height: 300px; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; width: 400px;" /><br />
<div align="center"><span style="color: #999999; font-size: x-small;">Our base at Tabin; kindly provided by the Sabah Wildlife Department</span><br />
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A primary aim of our research in Tabin will be to estimate the density of the reserve’s Sunda clouded leopard population, and we will tailor our camera surveys to address this question whilst simultaneously gathering information about the other wild cats and wider mammal community. Following survey protocols developed for tigers in India we will deploy a network of camera traps over at least 120km2 of Tabin’s forest and attempt to photograph or photo-trap as many individual clouded leopards as possible within a four-month period.<br />
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An area of this size presents huge logistical challenges and so we will need to split the survey into two discrete sub-areas of around 60km2. Within each sub area we will deploy 37 pairs of camera traps, located so as to maximise the chance of a successful photo-trap. The last three years have taught us much about the best locations to place the camera traps, and we will need to draw on all of this experience as the favoured camera locations –old logging roads –are few and far between in Tabin, and so much the cameras will require extensive trail cutting and hiking in order to set and check the cameras.<br />
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We will keep you informed of our progress.... wish us luck!<br />
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* <span style="background-color: #999999; font-size: x-small;">A small narrow corridor still connects Tabin to the forest reserves along the coastline.</span>Andy Hearnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10405284067095591144noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4544483311990105105.post-37917872822227864782009-07-15T09:19:00.006+07:002009-10-19T18:54:51.648+07:00Mammals residing in the oil palm plantations<div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; text-align: justify;">In March 2009 the camera traps were moved to an oil palm plantation to investigate to what extent the Bornean wild cats, and indeed the wider mammal community, use plantations, and to estimate the density of leopard cats, which are thought to do well in this habitat. Our study site, the Danum Palm plantation is the southernmost tip of a vast contiguous plantation area, and is sandwiched between the Segama river, to the east, and the Ulu Segama and Malua Forests Reserves, to the West.<br />
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</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_SauiMmcYaEo/StxHNx4hueI/AAAAAAAAAKo/pGXb8f-psUw/s1600-h/Danum+Palm+Map+for+Blog.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_SauiMmcYaEo/StxHNx4hueI/AAAAAAAAAKo/pGXb8f-psUw/s320/Danum+Palm+Map+for+Blog.jpg" vr="true" /></a><br />
</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; text-align: justify;">During the survey we recorded over 23 species of mammal that were using the plantation, although, importantly, some species such as the sambar deer and mouse deer were only recorded at the forest-plantation boundary. Bornean yellow muntjac and red muntjac were recorded in some areas, however, photo-capture rates of these species are lower than that from our forest surveys, which suggests that they may be found at lower densities in plantations. Bearded pigs, porcupines and Pig-tailed macaques were found in good numbers throughout the plantation, whereas long-tailed macaques tended to be associated with the camera sites adjacent to the Segama river.<br />
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</div><div class="separator" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_SauiMmcYaEo/StxIoeVyU_I/AAAAAAAAAKw/sm8o4BBWPwc/s1600-h/B+pig+DP+13a+0072+crop.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_SauiMmcYaEo/StxIoeVyU_I/AAAAAAAAAKw/sm8o4BBWPwc/s400/B+pig+DP+13a+0072+crop.jpg" vr="true" /></a><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_SauiMmcYaEo/StxJjXuqBbI/AAAAAAAAAK4/nD5UwFXU9Ms/s1600-h/Y+muntjak+DP+22a+0111.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_SauiMmcYaEo/StxJjXuqBbI/AAAAAAAAAK4/nD5UwFXU9Ms/s400/Y+muntjak+DP+22a+0111.jpg" vr="true" /></a><br />
</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; text-align: justify;">Leopard cats were the most commonly recorded carnivore, although Malay civets and common palm civets were also frequently recorded. On several occasions photographs were also obtained of mongooses and yellow-throated martens. It’s likely that the high densities of rodents found in these plantations are being exploited to differing degrees by these particular carnivores. In addition to leopard cats we also photo-trapped a single male marbled cat, on 4 separate occasions, which is extremely rare, even for forest surveys. Crucially, as with the Samba and mousedeer, this marbled cat was only detected on the very edge (literally) of the forest. We found no evidence of the clouded leopard, bay cat or flat-headed cat using the plantation, although it should be highlighted that survey was too brief to conclude that these felids are not using the plantation.<br />
</div><div class="separator" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_SauiMmcYaEo/StxO5Sqbx4I/AAAAAAAAALY/TQEUdND4V5w/s1600-h/L+cat++DP+16a+0035+crop.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_SauiMmcYaEo/StxO5Sqbx4I/AAAAAAAAALY/TQEUdND4V5w/s400/L+cat++DP+16a+0035+crop.jpg" vr="true" /></a><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_SauiMmcYaEo/StxOB7NXymI/AAAAAAAAALQ/ahhkFDGZtXo/s1600-h/Y+T+marten+DP+02b+0164+crop.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_SauiMmcYaEo/StxOB7NXymI/AAAAAAAAALQ/ahhkFDGZtXo/s400/Y+T+marten+DP+02b+0164+crop.jpg" vr="true" /></a><br />
</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; text-align: center;"><span style="color: #999999; font-size: x-small;">Leopard cat photographed along one of the palm terraces (Top). </span><br />
</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; text-align: center;"><span style="color: #999999; font-size: x-small;">Yellow throated marten photographed along a gravel road(Bottom)</span><br />
</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; text-align: justify;">We have now removed all the cameras from the plantation, where they will be sadly missed by the local children who found them an endless source of fascination!<br />
</div><div class="separator" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_SauiMmcYaEo/StxM1uZ_0dI/AAAAAAAAALI/UXud_-az8ZU/s1600-h/Kids+at+DP+crop.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_SauiMmcYaEo/StxM1uZ_0dI/AAAAAAAAALI/UXud_-az8ZU/s400/Kids+at+DP+crop.jpg" vr="true" /></a><br />
</div>Jo Rosshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11791276572196703444noreply@blogger.com0