Kukang!

This week we had a fun visit at the local primary school.  The mission of this visit was to have the children make drawings of lorises to use as decorations for the vending booths we will use during our Loris Pride Days.  So for each classroom (4 total from 2 different schools) we had all the children draw a picture of a loris.  The other mission was to gather another baby name for our ever-expanding population of lorises.  For this we had each child write the name of their loris on their drawing paper. 

The arrival of foreigners always causes a stir in the village, but we were soon mobbed by curious (and very shy!) children at the entrance of the school.  I managed to get a few smiles and words of greeting from the shy mob before we headed toward our first classroom.  As soon as we walked into the classroom, the children were immediately silent but almost squirming in their seats from excitement.  After introductions and explanations from Iing (our part-time education correspondent) and Pak Dendi (our head tracker and manager-in-training) the children were starting their drawings.

Some of the children were very talented and confident in their drawing while others were more shy.  Of course, any time a foreigner got close enough to look at their progress they would stop drawing or cover their work from shyness.  Funnily enough, the girl who was the most shy about her drawing had the best picture!  It was amazing!  Done all in pencil but showing very advanced talent for her age (see below).

The next day we came back to the school to announce the winners of the drawing contest and hand out prizes.  We had first, second and third prize winners from each school.  The children were extremely enthusiastic and now have some very positive memories associated with the kukang (loris).  Finding a winner for the baby name contest will take a little more time and maybe some help from our fantastic LFP fans!  Stay tuned for that one.

I look forward to many more school visits in future and hopefully the children will learn to not be so shy around us!

P.S.  This week Jennifer managed to get up close and personal with actual lorises!  See the link to her blog for a personal account of her time in Cipaganti.

New Friends, Mud Slides, and a Closer Look at Poo

This week we welcomed a new volunteer to the LFP field station – Jennifer Margono.  Jennifer comes from Duke University in the USA and will be staying with us for 2 months to assist in loris observation and education programs.  Jennifer has a family connection to Indonesia and so speaks a bit of the local language.  We plan on putting her to good use!  J

Jennifer’s first attempted visit to the loris habitat was not very successful.  May is meant to be the beginning of the dry season in Java, but someone forgot to tell Mother Nature this!  For the past few weeks, we have had some of the worst rains of the year.  After an already long rainy season, the ground is very saturated with water.  This means, that all this extra water is causing mudslides and flooding.  So far, the habitat of our lorises has not been directly impacted by the large mudslides, but we will have to be very careful if this rain continues.

View of large mudslide from field station.

This is why when it began to rain on Jennifer’s first visit to our observation area we made the quick decision to head back down the mountain.  The path down the mountain is always difficult and slippery when raining, but with all the extra water our path turned into a rushing stream!  Somehow with a little luck (and being creative with our route) we made it back down the mountain without having to slide down on our bums!  So no official loris sitings for Jennifer yet.

Luckily (or unluckily?) for Jennifer, her first in-depth exposure to lorises came through poo samples!  We have fecal samples from each of our study animals and this week we are taking a very close look at the diet of our lorises.  The easiest way to assess diet is by looking at what comes out the other end of the animal...poo!  We made a very official laboratory in our common room and the analysis began! 

Volunteers Mark and Jennifer with PhD candidate Johanna taking a closer look at fecal samples.

At first it took a very long time to process each sample, but we developed a good system and started to move along at a decent pace.  With help from some interesting lighting arrangements, magnifying glasses, and a microscope, we were able to identify a few things.  The easiest to identify were insect legs and parasites (worms).  We also found evidence of gum, tree bark, and some other miscellaneous insect bits.  This confirms some things that we already know about the diet of our lorises.  We are not entomologists so insect identification from legs and bits of shell is not possible, but we are hoping to have an expert look at the bits we pulled from the poo.  Then perhaps we can get an even better idea of what our little firefaces are eating out there in the forest!

Our 'official' lighting set-up.

Up close and personal with loris poo!