The Weekly Anthropocene Interviews: Dr. Wong Siew Te, CEO of the Bornean Sun Bear Conservation Centre
A Scientist Spotlight Interview
Dr. Wong Siew Te is a Malaysian wildlife biologist and expert on the sun bear (Helarctos malayanus), the smallest and most arboreal bear species. He is the founder and CEO of the Bornean Sun Bear Conservation Centre, which works to rehabilitate sun bears rescued from the illegal wildlife trade and prepare them to be released into the wild.
A lightly edited transcript of this exclusive interview follows. This writer’s questions and remarks are in bold, Dr. Wong’s responses are in regular type. Bold italics are clarifications and extra information added after the interview.
Images in this article are from the Bornean Sun Bear Conservation Centre website.
Can you tell me about your pioneering research into sun bear biology and their critical role of dispersing ficus seeds in the forest ecosystem?
Sun bears are the smallest bear species across the world. Over the years I’ve been studying them, I found that they play many important ecological roles in the forest. When they eat fruits, they ingest the seeds of the fruits, and it comes out in their feces. It then germinates, they help the tree grow. For anything to live and survive year-round for millions of years, it needs to disperse its genes. So the mother tree needs to disperse the seeds far away from her. That’s why they grow fruit, to disperse the seeds. For sun bears, eating those fruits, because of that dispersal mechanism, the sun bears can help to combat global climate change, because of the seeds that they spread and the role they play in the health of the forest.
When they eat termites, they destroy the termite nest and dig up and eat all the termite larvae, so the termites don’t grow to become too many and kill trees in the forest. They’re like a forest doctor, keeping the forest healthy. The sun bear won’t eliminate the termites totally, but they keep them in check, they keep the balance of the forest ecosystem. The key word is equilibrium.
Sun bears also play a role as forest engineers. When they feed on the stingless bees, which have their hives in hollow tree trunks, they climb up the trunk regardless of how high is the hive, and then use their very sharp teeth to rip apart the tree trunk, exposing the cavities. They get the bees, and then the cavities are used by hornbills as nests and by flying squirrels as nests. Sun bears play the roles that create nests for other species, they’re forest engineers.
They’re also forest farmers. This process is quite important as well. Typically in a rainforest, the topsoil, the top layers, are the most fertile. And when the sun bears dig, like for termites, they’re mixing the top soil together with the soil underneath, spreading the nutrients. So all of that is very important. We also have more and more evidence that they are a food provider. When they feed on a termite nest, there’s always something left behind, and it’s picked up by pheasants and other birds. All in all, sun bears are really key to the health of the forest ecosystem.
Can you tell me about your journey to sun bear conservation and your founding of the Bornean Sun Bear Conservation Centre?
I’ve loved animals all my life. From the age of seven, I wanted to be an animal expert, maybe a veterinarian. After high school, I went to vet school. But at the time, the vet schools were focused on livestock. And whole process of producing these animals is very inhumane, the animals suffers. Later, I got to learn about wildlife. And after I graduated with a veterinary diploma, my interest in wildlife grew really, really large. I volunteered at the wildlife rescue center at the university, including sun bears, orangutans, and so on, all these protected species. But my interest is actually working with wildlife. So then I went to the States, I went to the University of Montana in 1994 to get a graduate degree studying wildlife. One of the professors there was Dr. Chris Servheen, a world-leading bear expert. At that time, the sun bear was the least known bear in the world. And he came to our class to give a lecture about the work that he has been doing with various bear species across the world, including sun bears in our country. He was looking for Malaysian students to study sun bears. I said, I can treat animals, and at the same time I have years of field experience, studying muntjac in Taiwan. So in ‘98, I went into Borneo for the very first time. I worked to radio-collar sun bears to study their ecology, their habits, what they eat, their activity patterns, important resources they use in the forest, those kind of questions. I saw how they climbed all the way to the treetop, one hundred feet above the ground. They play many roles, as mentioned just now.
Deforestation was happening, during that time in the 90s it was at its peak. They did logging, hunting, poaching, eating anything that could be considered as food, including the sun bears. Mammals are all very cute, so people sell them as exotic pets. There were a lot of mini-zoos, crocodile farms, all with a bear or two or three or four locked up in small cages to attract crowds. Back in 2004 I did a survey across Malaysia on the captive sun bear situation, in the hope to understand the conditions and how bad was the situation. The results showed that it was pretty bad. When captive sun bears are found, the authorities confiscate and then rescue the bears, but they don’t have a proper family to go back to and teach them how to live as a sun bear. For rescued orangutans, Sepilok Orangutan Rehabilitation Centre gives support to help these orangutans, but there was no one for the sun bear. I wanted to create a sun bear center, just to help the sun bears, to do animal welfare, education, research, rehabilitation, and community conservation.
Finally, in 2008, I finished my studies, I came here, and then established the center at Sepilok, next to the orangutan rehabilitation centre. It took me six years to fundraise and open to the public in 2014, to cover all of the expenses that need to be paid to help the sun bears.
Can you tell me about your center’s work rehabilitating sun bears from the pet trade and releasing them into the wild?
All of our bears at the sun bear center are all rescued bears. They’ve been captured by poachers after the poachers killed their mother. When people start to be aware that keeping sun bears in an illegal activity, they would report it to the authorities. Sun bears were listed as a protected species in 1997, one year before I came to Borneo. More and more people are aware that keeping sun bears is illegal, and they report it to us or to the authorities. Right now, 66 bears have been rescued and sent to us over the last 15 years. Currently there are 42 rescued bears at the Center. 12 were released back into the wild, 12 died for various reasons, and one escaped.
The adult bears we rescue are not releasable or able to be rehabilitated. They have grown up associating humans with food, and they lost the instinct of finding food. They used to be locked up in small cages, they lost the muscle for climbing trees. If they were released, they would look for people, and that might not be safe for them. And then second, they cannot survive in the deep jungle. They don’t know how. They would die.
Our hope is on the cubs that we rescue. When cubs are rescued, the first thing we need to do is bond with them as their surrogate mother. Their mother has been brutally killed, and we need to take her role. Try to be kind with them, hand-feed them, and then slowly they would accept us, bond with the keepers as surrogate mothers. Their stress would go down, they would eat more and grow fast. And then, after the bonding is established, we walk them in the forest. Walking bear cubs in the forest is a process of rehabilitation that’s very important. They experience life in the forest, they come across termite nests and learn to eat from them. Their instinct of feeding and foraging is still very strong.
And when they realize they can climb trees, they start to explore and sleep on top of trees. And all of this is a process. Once they reach about one year old, typically about twenty kilograms, we have no choice but not to walk them anymore. They could do harm by playing with the keepers, they play really rough. So we introduce them to other bears in forest enclosures, a forested environment where they can climb trees. They learn there until they reach adulthood at the age of four, and that’s the time we do a whole assessment and consider whether to release them back into the wild.
We pick the bears that have the foraging skill, tree-nesting skill, tree-climbing skills. And the challenge is to teach them to shy away from people, because it would be dangerous to go close to strange people in the wild. They bond with the keepers, but other people, unidentified people, they will shy away. So those are good traits that we want to keep, and these are the animals that we want to release into the wild eventually.
And then there are the bears who are friendly with everybody. We have a bear for example who was captured from the wild before he opened his eyes, and when he opened his eyes he saw humans, and kind of imprinted on us. Bears like these cannot be released back into the wild.
What can the general public do to help sun bears?
The first thing that the general public can do is to educate themselves about sun bears. They can visit our website, social media, Instagram, and YouTube to learn about sun bears. And visit our center, if you can. And step number two is to help us spread the word, tell your friends about it. Follow our social media, things like that. And something you can do if you are capable, the work that we do needs a lot of money. Donating to us really helps. And fourth, if you have time, come to be our volunteers. Which is quite an interesting experience, I can say. And fifth, help us fundraise! Help spread the word. And then finally, I always tell people to do what they do best to help us. If you’re a writer, write a story about sun bears. If you’re an artist, create art about sun bears. If you’re a musician, write a song about sun bear. My dream right now is to get Pixar or Disney to create an animation about sun bears-then I can retire. Like a Kung Fu Sun Bears!
Is there else you'd like to discuss? Anything to share with the audience
Asking the audience to learn about sun bears is really important. In Jane Goodall’s book, the first page says “Only if we understand, can we care. Only if we care, we will help. Only if we help, we shall be saved.” And finally, they [the animals] will be safe. So remember this quote!
Yet another great interview. 🙂 I've always had a bad case of "ursa-phobia" but after reading your interview with the good doctor, I'm prepared to make an exception for Sun Bears! 🐻. They are quite versatile and beneficial for the arborial ecosystem in a multitude of ways.