It could have been the driving horizontal rain that swept in over the river or our small boat jostling against the bank but the big orang utan fairly raced up the tree. We’d seen these marvellous creatures at relatively close quarters at orang Utan sanctuaries. It is always a special thrill though to see such a big animal living in the wild.

Although we love these big orange apes the highlight of our trip on the Kinabatangan River in Sabah, Malaysia was the Borneo pigmy elephant. It’s not that they are particularly elusive it’s just that so few of them are left. Actually they are not that much smaller than Asian elephants so we were quite surprised by its size when we came eye to eye with one browsing by the bank of the river. We somehow expected to see dinky little elephants but we were inspected by a beast that would have been respectable in India. With a trumpet and swish of the trunk it launched off back into the forest, startling hornbills that swooped across the river.

Once the excitement of the elephant settled down we drifted along the wide chocolate brown river. Ridiculous looking proboscis monkeys stared at us very openly and rudely. The fawn coloured males have enormous bulbous noses and it’s difficult not to smile or even laugh uproariously as they peer at you inquisitively.

Gliding beneath overhanging tree branches sobered us up a bit when we realised there was a huge blue and yellow mangrove snake coiled on a branch only a couple of meters above us. Our sigh of relief as we left the trees was short lived as a big crocodile surfaced next to our boat.  But like the snake it was not in the least bit interested in us and just wanted to be left alone. That was OK with us.

Luxuriating in a magnificent sunset we said goodnight to a troop of macaque monkeys settling down for the night in their roost in a tall tree.

Pictures

Soft warm moonlight silently dappled the palm fronds over the sandy beach and gleamed over the gentle sea. Far offshore a dark island floated against a velvet horizon. Kurt, the ranger, reminded us to be quiet, move slowly and avoid shinning lights on the sand. Above the sound of lapping waves we could hear a distinct scraping. Something was being dragged up the beach. Kurt encouraged us to move forward slowly and cautiously. Then we saw the turtle using its massive flippers to drag itself up the beach, clear of the high water mark. 

Only to or three metres to the right we were aware of sand being launched in broad arcs through the moonlight. Here an earlier green turtle was just finishing her egg laying pit in the sand. It was a big hole. Large enough to hide her 1.3m long shell from casual view. This gave her the privacy to start laying her clutch of eighty white, soft skinned eggs that looked like ping pong balls.  She seemed to be in a trance as we watched her lay her eggs into a deeper hole she had dug in the sand. Kurt carefully lifted out each egg as it was laid, placing it in a basket.

The distant tropical island of Selingan was far off the coast of Sabah, North Borneo, part of Malaysia. The island in the distance was one of the remote Philippines islands in the Sulu Sea. Here green turtles come to lay their eggs. But their eggs are eagerly welcomed by the giant monitor lizards that live on the island. Poachers also hunt for the eggs as delicacies. High above the palm trees sea eagles and other birds of prey patrol the beach waiting for the tiny hatchlings to emerge. Once in the water the hatchlings are food for fish. Despite the eggs being laid at night to avoid the lizards and the hatchlings emerging at night to avoid the birds the prospect for young turtles is dire. The predation rate is so high that only one in a hundred hatchlings reach maturity and the species is endangered.

Kurt and his fellow rangers run the conservation project on the island. They collect the eggs and bury them inside lizard proof enclosures. Laying turtles are carefully measured, tagged and monitored. On hatching each batch is gently released into the surf.

We were absolutely entranced and strangely excited to see the frantic crowd of tiny energetically flapping hatchlings race comically across the sand to plunge themselves into the surf. Everyone, including the widely grinning rangers, shared a sense of joy watching the babies instinctively knowing which way to scurry and the need to flap urgently into the embrace of the warm enfolding sea and sanctuary. 

The conservation team save thousands of turtle eggs and release thousands of hatchlings every month. By providing this dedicated protection at the very early part of the turtles lives they give the species a huge boost. There is evidence that the numbers of these ancient animals are on the increase in Malaysian waters. If you want to know more look at this web site.

http://www.sabahparks.org.my