Taman Negara – Rimba

Project update 16: Harimau muda!

No, this is not an update on the fortunes of Malaysia’s youth football team, affectionately named Harimau Muda.

Instead, this is the first update on one of Rimba’s youngest (‘muda’ in Bahasa Melayu) projects – Harimau Selamanya!

This newest project only hit the ground running in February and is still very much in its infancy. However, it has been a challenging and eventful last four months!

At the beginning of April, this project began with a one-week tiger sign survey workshop conducted by Panthera (Drs. Joe Smith and Rob Pickles) for research officers (Hakim, Khairul, Fauzi, Alim, Hafiz, Amirul) from the Department of Wildlife and National Parks (DWNP) and researchers (Wai Yee, Laurie, Jasdev and Reuben) and field assistants from Rimba.

Field assistants Uda, Rasul and Daha sniffing out and marking a tiger spray on a leaf. Scent spraying is a very common form of communication among tigers. The liquid used in spraying is not pure urine; it is mixed with scent gland secretions.

Continue reading →

July 14, 2014April 29, 2017 by Rimba Categories: Home, Project, Project UpdatesTags: clouded leopard, Harimau Malaya, Jasdev Sohanpal, Joe Smith, Kenyir Wildlife Corridor, Lam Wai Yee, Laurie Hedges, leopard, Malayan tiger, Neofelis nebulosa, Panthera, Panthera pardus, Panthera tigris jacksoni, Perhilitan, Reuben Clements, Rob Pickles, Taman Negara, Terengganu 2 Comments

Project update 8: Two Wildlife Corridor Projects!

Hi Rimba friends, the Kenyir Wildlife Corridor Project finally has a new update to share with you!

What have we been up to? Well for a start, we’ve found ourselves a new research station in the town of Gerik (Perak). Why do we need one there? This is because Reuben and Ahimsa are teaming up to start a new project in another wildlife corridor, near the town. Many thanks to Steven for getting the field house operational – it was quite difficult because the entire town of Gerik had no water supply for a week due to a landslide that took out a water treatment plant! But things are almost back to normal and the field station is 95% operational.

P1010251 — Our ‘other’ field house in Taman Gerik

090512g — Jet, the official field house cat and Rimba’s unofficial mascot

090512i — Jet is very possessive when it comes to our computer keyboards

Sheema has been helping the team catalogue more than 130,000 camera-trap photos from Kenyir into a software known as Camera Base. Although the cataloguing is far from over, we can tell you at least 32 mammal species have been camera-trapped so far – this is similar to the number of mammals recorded from camera-trap surveys in Malaysia’s largest protected area, Taman Negara. And this corridor is only 1% of Taman Negara’s size!

So is this the end of our work in Kenyir? Continue reading →

May 16, 2012August 9, 2017 by Rimba Categories: Home, Project, Project UpdatesTags: Ahimsa Campos-Arceiz, Bintang Hijau, camera-trap, Kenyir Wildlife Corridor, MEME, Reuben Clements, Rimba, Sheema Abdul Aziz, Taman Negara 1 Comment

Publication update 4: What will it take to save the Sumatran Rhino?

Now Or Never — click image to download paper. Copyright notice: Cambridge University Press

We’re sure many of you know that one of the world’s most magnificent and docile creatures, the Sumatran Rhinoceros (Dicerorhinus sumatrensis), is in deep trouble.

But just how bad is it? From a population of around 320 estimated in 1995, experts now say it could be down to as low as 216 individuals.

One of Rimba’s researchers, Reuben, was involved in a review published recently in the international journal Oryx. This paper was led by Ahmad Zafir Abdul Wahab (currently doing his PhD based at Universiti Sains Malaysia; ahmad.zafir@gmail.com) to find out what needs to be done to save this species from extinction. The consensus is that: Continue reading →

May 9, 2011March 12, 2013 by Rimba Categories: Home, PublicationsTags: Ahmad Zafir Abdul Wahab, Bukit Barisan Selatan, conservation, Danum, Gunung Leuser, International Rhino Foundation, James Cook University, Junaidi Payne, Malaysia, Oryx, Reuben Clements, rhino, SAFE index, Sumatra, Sumatran rhinoceros, Tabin, Taman Negara, Universiti Malaya, Way Kambas, WWF, WWF-Malaysia 1 Comment