Proboscis Monkey Blog

Tuesday 21 march 2006

Changes of seeing the Proboscis Monkey at Menanggol River in Sukau.

Just some last thoughts about our trips to the Proboscis Monkey Hotspots. This unique creature can fortunately still be observed in its original habitat. Although tour organisations and tour guides will of course always suggest that the chances are higher, after our own six boat trips on the Sungai (=River) Menanggol (the utmost beautiful Kinabatangan tributary for spotting Proboscis Monkeys) and talking with many other tourists and guides we can guess how big the chances are.
These boat trips are offered by almost all five lodges from 4 pm to 6 pm in the afternoon. Private boat trips are 60 RM. You will see only one species of a certain kind on one boat trip

Discovery Tours did all our boat trips during this week. Our Menanggol boat men (with silent electric engines). Samson (right) and his assistant Delila. A great team. Not a single Proboscis or any other wildlife will escape their eyes.  
Just some last thoughts about our trips to all Proboscis Monkey Hotspots. This unique creature can fortunately still be observed in his original habitat. Although tour organisations and tour guides will of course always keep the changes higher, after our own six boat trips on the Sungai (=River) Menanggol (the utmost beautiful Kinabatangan side river for spotting Proboscis Monkeys) and talking with many other tourists and guides we can do a guess how big the changes are you will see one species of a certain kind in one boat trip. These boat trips are offered by almost all five lodges in the afternoon from 4-6 pm. Pivate boattrips are 60 RM.

But first let me be clear, I gave you my own non-commercial view on this. It is my truth. Was it all worthwhile? Is this the best place on this Globe to visit the Proboscis Monkey family?
YES!

But this is not an invitation to large groups of tourists to come to Kinabatangan now. Locals can only handle approximately. 100 tourists a day on very basic accommodations. When the river is high and the roads are impossible to use you can only come by (a more expensive) boat from Kota Kinabalu over sea. For spotting PM, however, Bako Klias or Labuk Bay was hardly any better. For a photographer like me,  Bako and Labuk Bay were fine.The Klias River was too busy and noisy. But the Menanggol River in Sukau is absolutely one of the last remaining beautiful hot spots. At the same time it is very sad to find that the number of PM  are declining every year. Our Discovery Guide mentioned a WFF count in this area of about 2000 PM today. Our guess is that this number is probably much lower.
Stimulating tourism will help the Malay Government to realize and hopefully convince Congress to preserve wildlife and the last bits of forest, instead of destroying more for new palm oil plantations. On the other hand, the several old tourist boats used are very noisy and scare the animals, polluting the clean air by leaving a lot of smoky petrol fumes behind. Silent electric engines could be the answer. Our boat had one and that was perfect.
We suggest some possibilities in case you want to go, just to give you an idea.

This used to be a big rain forest! The odds that it will rain: once every 5 trips. (None of the boats have rain covers; they are all open). The chances you will meet other tourist boats stopping and trying to spot the same species will be one in three boats on a trip (and possibly more!).
The chance that you will see a Proboscis Monkey group on the Menanggol River is once  every trip. But there are certainly also moments you won’t see anything of the kind!  Your best chances are during the afternoon (4-6 pm) trips. You can watch their behaviour (ask the boat man to switch off his noisy engines ASAP) and listen to their large bizarre range of noises including roars, grunts, nasal honks and squeals. (We recorded these unique sounds and quarrels with a macaque group! Great sounds, probably shortly available on DVD, CD or as MP3 on our site).
Seeing  two PM groups on the same trip, could happen once every three trips and seeing more than three groups of PM is once on 10-20 trips.
Seeing a PM group with mothers and babies jumping across this river and sometimes falling down into the water might be seen once on maybe 20 trips. (We were very lucky to see 10 jumps and we filmed several).
To hear Gibbons Sing (early in the morning) may occur once on 8 trips; hardly ever to be seen and to hear a distant Borneo Pygmy Elephant  once on 25 trips.
Actually seeing  a Borneo Pygmy group on the riverside is a possibility on maybe 250 trips. We, again, were very very lucky and made some great shots and sound recordings).
An Orang-utang might be seen here once on 15 trips with the help of a very good spotter/guide, but they are not as active as PM.
What we also saw: many big super white Egrets, Darters, Rhino Hornbill, Wild Boar or Pig, Pied Hornbill, Viper snake, Kingfisher, Long tailed Macaques, Silver Langur, Monitor Lizard, Orang-utangs’ sleeping nests (1,000 here to find and a total of 3,000 left on Borneo and Sumatra), also many beautiful butterflies and many different kinds of trees.
 

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/