Proboscis Monkey Blog

Sunday 19-03-2006

Orang Utan cross-over rope used by Proboscis Monkeys.

On this evening trip we discovered a large group consisting of one male and 15 ladies some with very young babies. They were daily observed by three Japanese University students making a report on their behaviour in the muddy and swampy tributary banks of this Menanggol river. We could not get more info this time but….. HELLO JAPAN UNIVERSITY we hope you read this blog and will contact us for more PM info, in exchange we have some nice photos of you working there and the PM group you were following.
 

Further down the river we saw another group of PM walking on a thin metal wire. This was really a funny circus act to watch. Originally this wire was meant for Orang-utangs to cross the river because they can’t swim but Proboscis are proficient swimmers: they have webbed back-feet on which they can walk in mangrove areas and swim without sinking.
 

Walking on a thin rope is more tricky and can go wrong as we saw. They can also fly through the air from one tree to another. But they seem to like this wire bridge, because they use it and some of them walked across it like an acrobat trying to keep their balance with their hands but because of their scary way of  running along, one of them missed a step and fell down; fortunately it grabbed successfully a tree branch. If they fall into the water they have to swim for their life because crocodiles like this ‘Monkey snack’. We have not seen any of these monsters but they are undoubtedly present which the locals acknowledge. Tourists are advised not to put their hands along the sides of the boat.
 

What we did see was a mother with her baby jumping. She miscalculated the tree distance on the other side and fell into the water with the baby. After a short swim she safely reached the other side.
 

We wondered whether the baby could break its neck with in the collapse on the surface. Our High Speed Digital film provided the solution; in slow motion we could see in the last frame how she embraced the baby to protect from for the ‘big bang’.
THE JAN PROBOSCIS MONKEY BLOG
is written now ‘LIVE’ in Borneo Malaysia
by Jan van der Meer
founder http://www.global-dvc.org/ and
Photographer and DVD-producer
of the Proboscis Monkey in Borneo
other info on Proboscis Monkey in Dutch and more
photographs and first edited videoclips at:
http://www.orang-belanda.hyves.nl/