Jan 10 2009

There are no small, cuddly teddy bears at the Wildlife Center. The Sun Bears and Asiatic Black Bears are large adult animals that must be handled with extreme caution. That is why we volunteers also make sure they are safely behind bars before tending to their needs. Asiatic Black Bears have heavy shabby coats and a pale V-shaped patch on their chest. Sun Bears are smaller. They have smooth black coats, a caramel snout and a large sun-shaped patch on the chest.

Asian Black Bear

Sun Bear

Oompoom, a Sun Bear, is alone in his enclosure. He was rescued from life in a tiny enclosure hardly large enough to contain his growing bulk. He did have an enclosure mate, but that bear was discovered dead. One version has the two bears in a big fight and the other version says that Oompoom rolled over and suffocated the other bear in his sleep. Whatever the truth Oompoom is now alone and his enclosure has an electric fence inside the metal enclosure. We hide his food all over his large enclosure, in the crooks of trees, inside a huge pipe or in holes in the ground, anything to make foraging for food the norm. He gets extra treats each day to try and give him extra stimulation.  

Four Black Asiatic bears arrived direct from school. (That is one of them in the photo scratching his back against an enclosure pole.) They had been bought by a local school as pets when they were small cubs but were now far too big for the small enclosure to which they were confined. They were also good and fat, in dire need of a larger space to work off all that extra weight gained from bad food. At the center three of them share a large field and get fed almost the same fruits and veggies that the Primates receive, with the addition of chicken and dry dog food several times a week. A fourth School Bear, Sumsi, has an injury sustained in a fight with the others and is now in isolation until her would heals and she can rejoin the others. 

Joan and Bouncer are two more Black Asiatic bears. Bouncer was found with his front limb caught in a leg trap. The leg was so infected it had to be amputated. He now gets around quite well with a bouncy gait, hence the name. 

There are also two young sun bears, Kaka and Galimaire and the Three Temple Bears, who as their name implies, once lived in a temple! The bear population is rounded out by a group of nine bears, 6 Asiatic Black and 3 Sun bears live in the largest enclosure. We don't clean out their enclosure as it is difficult to round them all up at once. That is a chore left for the more experienced Thai staff. 

Twice a day before the bears are fed, we transfer the animals to an adjoining anti-room and enter their enclosure to clear away left over food and heaps of bear poo. For most of the bears, we scatter the food for their meal the same way we do for Oompoom. For the rest, we put them back in their field enclosure and leave their food in the anti-room. 

The bears also get extra treats. This week we prepared a mixture of mashed banana mixed with seeds, monkey chow and dry dog food. This yummy mess was wrapped in banana leaves and tied with vines to provide a challenge for the bears. We also stuffed the mixture into a length of bamboo with extra holes drilled into the sides. The bears have very long tongues, just the right length for extricating every last morsel from the bamboo. Other days volunteers find ant nests in the forest and leave them in their enclosures for the bears to munch on. 

Each bear enclosure has a large concrete pool. Once a week it must be drained, cleaned and filled with fresh water. This is a job for six or more people and can take more than an hour to complete. The water is drained through a bottom hole or siphoned off and any remaining water removed with a bucket. Then the last vestiges of algae must be scrubbed by hand with stiff brushes from the concrete pool and finally the pool is filled with fresh water.

Last weekend 16 teen aged students from an International School in Bangkok visited the center for the weekend. They stayed in tents at the center and got to do chores. One was cleaning two of the bear pools. I had to wade into each one and unscrew the plug to be able to drain the pools prior to the students going to work. I had fears of going for an unanticipated swim in the pool but managed to keep my balance. The students did a great job scrubbing the bottom of the pool clean.

We also had a visit from 20 seven year olds from France, touring with their teachers. They just got a tour of the complex and fed the bamboo and banana leaf treats we prepared to the bears. They were suitably impressed by the bears.