On September 11, 2017 CEE4Life announces on their website that work as begun on the new Sun Bear enclosure. They offer accompanying pictures.
Work on the new enclosures for the sun-bears of Bandung Zoological Gardens (BZG) has now started with hopes for a finish date of early November 2017, all going well.
The sun-bears of BZG have been in the world headlines after false and misleading video was released claiming the sun-bears were “starving and begging for food out of hunger”. Sadly, in many zoos, visitors feed the animals. Sun-bears are particularly susceptible to this visitor attention due to their expressive faces and flexible human-like movements. They learn to stand up and reach out when they see people as they have learnt that this will get them food. The BZG sun-bears display this learned behavior and unfortunately the food that visitors gave to them is not part of their diet and can cause illness. Thankfully, the BZG sun-bears have not been badly affected at this time.
Over the last few months, Cee4life has provided support to prevent the public from feeding the sun-bears by being an active presence at the enclosure sites and educating the public. The BZG has placed “Do not feed the animals” signage all around the enclosures, however it is an ongoing process as feeding the animals is so ingrained in some people.
An interesting fact has surfaced – after speaking with foreign visitors to BZG, it was found that many believed the sun-bears to be of the bulk mass of a grizzly or brown bear. The appearance of the sleek small tree dwelling bears surprised many, however once educated on the reality of the small slender physical appearance of the sun-bears, and their natural “built-for-climbing-tree’s” frames, a better understanding of sun-bears has begun. Out of this entire viral episode, the positive is that people are learning about these lovely little bears.
At no time has the BZG claimed that the enclosures for the bears were fantastic. BZG understands and agree’s the enclosures need upgrading and together with the PKBSI (Indonesia Zoos and Aquariums) and Cee4life, the upgrades has begun.
The BZG was built in 1933 within a pristine 200+ year old forest. In order to upgrade the enclosures, careful planning has been done to ensure the least amount of impact to the surrounding protected old growth forest.
The new sun-bear enclosure is 29m x 16m x 26m x 10m (as seen above L) and will consist of a surrounding dry moat, water sources, 4 x secure weather resistant night/shelter dens, trees, other enrichment items and CCTV. Work began on these new enclosures in late August 2017. Please note – the shed in the photo on R will be pulled down.
The initial construction works began by removing old fencing and removal of debris within the soil. The photo (L) is taken mid way across the the lower dry moat area, the photo (R) from the fence line of the zebra’s enclosure. While construction works are going on, the sun-bears remain temporarily in their old enclosures, however upgrades within those enclosures has already occurred.
We all wait with anticipation for the enclosures to be completed. It is a mammoth job to complete the upgrade of all enclosures and it takes time and patience to get it all right.
We will continue to update as the enclosures progress further.
