tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-69667357103119326622011-09-15T20:29:20.593+07:00Join us on the search for the elusive Javan Rhino in Vietnam.Jonathannoreply@blogger.comBlogger341100tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6966735710311932662.post-9702179974976968892010-06-01T22:05:00.000+07:002010-06-29T22:05:53.360+07:00

On 29th April a carcass of a Javan Rhino was found in the area where we had been doing our survey. Read more about it here and with additional information also here Samples are being sent for DNA analysis so that we can determine if this was one of the rhinos whose dung we collected, and therefore how many living rhinos this leaves us with.

Sarah Brook and Simon Mahoodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07349209779383988178noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6966735710311932662.post-19764937183470118742010-04-25T12:00:00.000+07:002010-05-03T10:20:54.044+07:00

During the survey, as time went on, we became increasingly aware of the fragile existence of this rhino population. At times we would feel it was truly remarkable that any rhinos still remain here. With an ever-expanding human population around the park, signs of people in the forest were usually more frequent than signs of rhino and other wildlife. The remaining Javan Rhinos in Vietnam (however

Sarah Brook and Simon Mahoodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07349209779383988178noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6966735710311932662.post-8367980668537115612010-04-21T12:15:00.000+07:002010-05-03T10:19:58.977+07:00

Chevy worked with Simon throughout the survey. He got really excited every time we went into the forest, rolling around on the floor in anticipation of getting his favorite thing, this ball, when he found some rhino dung.

Sarah Brook and Simon Mahoodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07349209779383988178noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6966735710311932662.post-47795660168568149332010-04-19T11:36:00.000+07:002010-05-03T10:19:20.191+07:00

Bruiser worked with Sarah for the second half of the survey. Although he's lying down or cooling off in all of these photos, he was a blur of fur when he was working!

Sarah Brook and Simon Mahoodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07349209779383988178noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6966735710311932662.post-59395837026122897702010-04-17T10:45:00.000+07:002010-05-03T10:18:51.427+07:00

Although we are surveying for rhinos, we aren’t exactly tripping over them on a daily basis. Trees are the things we see the most. We trip over the ones we don’t see. Most trees are fairly ho hum, although Junaidi opened our eyes a little and we can now identify two tree families (some of the time). I now know that this is a very large Dipterocarp: This tree is far from run of the mill – it has

Sarah Brook and Simon Mahoodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07349209779383988178noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6966735710311932662.post-13838742388617633652010-04-15T10:19:00.000+07:002010-04-29T11:35:59.554+07:00

We couldn’t have done our survey without the assistance of national park and forest protection department staff, and local people. Mr. Hai in particular knows the forests better than most of the people at the national park, and came on almost every field trip. Here he is in the white t-shirt translating for us so that we could interview some local people. We haven’t always been able to work

Sarah Brook and Simon Mahoodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07349209779383988178noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6966735710311932662.post-26080950022981419042010-04-14T11:55:00.001+07:002010-04-14T14:29:45.146+07:00

Our last few surveys have now taken place. We’ve had a number of visitors during these trips to the forest. First, Junaidi Payne, Marshall Mathews and Fredelis Bungin from WWF Malaysia and Borneo Rhino Alliance visited us for a few days. We chatted about rhinos and dogs, and they came to see how we worked so that they could evaluate the potential for using dogs for rhino surveys in Sabah. Here’

Sarah Brook and Simon Mahoodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07349209779383988178noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6966735710311932662.post-56735747073057319372010-03-26T12:08:00.000+07:002010-03-24T16:00:19.939+07:00

Down here at our field site if it isn’t forest, and it isn’t rice, then it’s almost always cashew. Cashew nuts are the favoured cash-crop for local people in and around the national park. Almost all of the forest surrounding the national park, and some of the forest inside it, has been converted to cashew plantations.  These hills just outside of the national park are covered in recently

Sarah Brook and Simon Mahoodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07349209779383988178noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6966735710311932662.post-60308329137264785212010-03-24T15:29:00.002+07:002010-03-24T15:31:26.245+07:00

As the dry season advances, we are searching out the few remaining wet areas in the hope of finding rhino footprints. Once we find footprints, we can try to follow them and this should, in theory, lead us to the precious dung. We also wander haphazardly through the forest in the hope of a chance dung encounter, but in general, we feel that targeted searching is more likely to get us the results.

Sarah Brook and Simon Mahoodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07349209779383988178noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6966735710311932662.post-28478804544697538132010-03-16T19:04:00.000+07:002010-03-16T19:04:38.610+07:00

As planned, we headed north this week to search for those elusive rhinos. We began with a boat journey to an ethnic minority village. The river was really low and sometimes the boat had to be pulled upstream.   Then we traveled to another village along a busy track through the forest. The rangers went by motorbike, whilst we walked with our two chocolate labradors. The remaining forest on the

Sarah Brook and Simon Mahoodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07349209779383988178noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6966735710311932662.post-70765822814577478592010-03-08T20:16:00.002+07:002010-03-08T20:18:07.169+07:00

It’s been a few weeks since we’ve found any new rhino dung, and during that time we haven’t found any recent signs of rhino activity in the areas the rhinos are thought to use the most. So where have all the rhinos gone? Talking to park staff and local people, it seems that the rhinos (or rhino) have moved a little to the north and east of the usual areas. Following these suggestions, we took a

Sarah Brook and Simon Mahoodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07349209779383988178noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6966735710311932662.post-90429865507630532102010-02-27T16:55:00.000+07:002010-02-27T16:55:09.773+07:00

Like all living things, rhinos are dependant on water. But rhinos need water more than most animals. They spend a lot of time wallowing in muddy pools, both to cool down, and to keep their skin free from parasites. We also spend a lot of our time close to rhino wallows. The wallows are the easiest places to find footprints, which when followed, sometimes lead us to dung. Also, since we know that

Sarah Brook and Simon Mahoodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07349209779383988178noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6966735710311932662.post-86873188948770748242010-02-10T16:34:00.002+07:002010-02-15T16:38:15.042+07:00

We found plenty of signs of rhinos on our latest trip to the forest, where we camped in the middle of prime rhino habitat. A rhino had crossed the stream just a few hundred metres up from the campsite sometime in the last couple of months (it’s not easy to estimate the age of footprints, so I won’t even try). The rhino had headed in the direction of “bomb wallow” so called because it was

Sarah Brook and Simon Mahoodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07349209779383988178noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6966735710311932662.post-16839614065139590642010-01-30T09:07:00.005+07:002010-02-11T09:39:55.136+07:00

It feels like a long time since we were last searching for dung in the forest. Chevy and I were excited to be back in the field: And Bruiser was pleased to be doing some work as well. We were was also excited about this: We’ve both really missed the food we eat in the forest. Cured pork from the local ethnic minority people, rattan shoots, and various leaves, all fried or cooked in soups

Sarah Brook and Simon Mahoodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07349209779383988178noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6966735710311932662.post-6149411329118865842010-01-21T17:54:00.000+07:002010-01-21T17:54:02.974+07:00

At the start of a new year, we welcome a new dog to the survey team: Bruiser! Bruiser will work with Sarah and replaces Pepper for the rest of the survey, whilst Pepper has gone back to the USA. Steve from Packleader brought Bruiser over and provided a week of training for Sarah in working with the new dog. Bruiser had to acclimatise to the smells and temperature of Vietnam, and shed that thick

Sarah Brook and Simon Mahoodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07349209779383988178noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6966735710311932662.post-66029845095374724062009-12-20T17:08:00.001+07:002009-12-22T17:54:50.234+07:00

In the forest it is hot and sweaty during the day, but it gets really cold at night. Icicles form on your eye-lashes and your clothes freeze to the hammock. Well maybe it’s not that cold, but it certainly is cold – we wear four layers of clothing at night and we’re still chilly. So what to do? Well…there’s a big warm dog lying there on his little platform just next to your hammock, so you

Sarah Brook and Simon Mahoodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07349209779383988178noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6966735710311932662.post-67520836542994183892009-12-15T16:53:00.002+07:002009-12-15T17:07:22.999+07:00

This week we found some fresh dung! Up till now all the dung we have found has been a little older, and dry. This should not be a problem, the dogs can still sniff it out and we can still collect samples for analysis, but it is just more exciting to find fresh dung. You can almost taste the rhino. The action centred around a large swampy area which the rhinos like to visit. Sarah and her team

Sarah Brook and Simon Mahoodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07349209779383988178noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6966735710311932662.post-8933984262065573602009-12-09T17:19:00.002+07:002009-12-10T11:17:35.306+07:00

This week we found no dung, and no footprints. This was no surprise, since we were surveying in an area where rangers and local people had not recorded any rhino signs for 5-10 years. Up until this week we have been surveying in the part of the national park which rangers and local people regard as the only place where rhinos persist, there we had found rhino footprints every day. However, in the

Sarah Brook and Simon Mahoodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07349209779383988178noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6966735710311932662.post-84692736801680927022009-12-09T17:18:00.002+07:002009-12-10T11:14:03.151+07:00

In a nearby stream we found a plastic drift fence running down the middle of the stream for about 100 meters with nets at either end, set to catch turtles, snakes and frogs. Vietnam’s turtles are amongst the most threatened in the world. Once again the rangers set to work: Enforce that! And that! Another hunters camp gets the treatment. We never did find the campsite we were

Sarah Brook and Simon Mahoodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07349209779383988178noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6966735710311932662.post-9463322114706530892009-12-02T17:28:00.002+07:002009-12-03T09:51:54.073+07:00

Those idle enough to be at home during the day-time in the UK in the 1990s will remember the day-time TV classic “Through the Keyhole”. For those who have never seen the show (and for many of those who have), this will be a bit lame. Basically the premise of the show on which this blog post is based is that panelists (who in this version are to be played by you the blog reader) are shown a number

Sarah Brook and Simon Mahoodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07349209779383988178noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6966735710311932662.post-71553662459674086832009-11-24T17:17:00.001+07:002009-11-24T22:34:24.515+07:00

We’re back from another few days in the forest. We found another eight dung piles, all of them were at least a few weeks old, and some had rotted away to almost nothing. This was one of the best specimens: And here I am in a rattan thicket sampling the heap: We had our best results close to this forest pool, which local people said was regularly used by rhinos and Gaur. It looks good for

WWF-Vietnamnoreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6966735710311932662.post-62162201134942168412009-11-19T19:18:00.002+07:002009-11-19T19:18:00.299+07:00

On our last field trip Chevy got himself a monster of a leech. It found him when he was wandering through a rhino wallow. I noticed it hanging from his crotchal region when he got out of the water and pulled it off. Here it is in my hand, this is before it got a chance to take his blood: what a monster!!!

Sarah Brook and Simon Mahoodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07349209779383988178noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6966735710311932662.post-44587033400347953622009-11-16T19:18:00.001+07:002009-11-16T19:22:26.947+07:00

As our Twitter followers will know, we have returned from our first five day trip to the forest. In five days of searching we found two dung piles, both rather old. Sarah’s team found both of them. Our team of two national park technical staff (Mr Hai and Mr Long), two rangers (Mr Thai and Mr Huong), two local guides (Mr Nga and Mr Banh) and us and the dogs camped by a beautiful forest stream

Sarah Brook and Simon Mahoodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07349209779383988178noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6966735710311932662.post-74863652680263399422009-11-11T15:12:00.003+07:002009-11-18T14:46:42.750+07:00

While staying at park HQ, the park received a confiscation of about 260 water monitors. These large lizards are popular restaurant food in towns, and are put in large jars of rice wine for drinking on special occasions. At least 220 of the lizards were still alive so the park decided to release them. Here are a few pictures of them in the sacks they arrived in, just prior to release.

WWF-Vietnamnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6966735710311932662.post-88890301324422277772009-11-09T19:32:00.001+07:002009-11-09T19:34:17.299+07:00

Tomorrow is the beginning: the first proper day of the survey. The training is over and now will will take the dogs into the forest for five days to search for the elusive rhino dung. We'll let you know how we get on when we get back.

Sarah Brook and Simon Mahoodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07349209779383988178noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6966735710311932662.post-83210531579045011982009-11-01T15:10:00.002+07:002009-11-19T17:54:04.866+07:00

Vietnam's forests are full of leeches. They manage to creep inside clothing that is tucked into clothing sprayed with insect repellant as easily as escapologists escape from locked boxes, only the principle is reversed. The dogs suffer as much as we do and we have to stop and remove leeches from them regularly.  Over the next six months we’ll be posting a number of posts of leeches doing what

WWF-Vietnamnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6966735710311932662.post-40731998782041376262009-10-27T12:13:00.004+07:002009-11-18T14:50:14.538+07:00

Another training day and only our second visit to forest where the rhinos are found, this time we went one better than footprints: dung!!! We split into our two teams and met up at lunchtime at a beautiful wallow on a ridge (don’t worry, I haven’t gone rhino crazy, the wallow really was beautiful!). See, it is beautiful My team went up a stream, which Chevy loved, and then climbed up to a

Sarah Brook and Simon Mahoodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07349209779383988178noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6966735710311932662.post-10455435496766741222009-10-25T11:38:00.004+07:002009-11-18T15:43:53.779+07:00

We found our first rhino footprints today! We are still in the training phase, so for our first day in the forest where the rhinos live we took the dogs on a short walk with rangers Huong and Hong to a wallow close to our village. The wallow is located at the head of a small stream which flows into rice paddies a couple of a kilometers from the house where we are staying. Sarah and Steve in

Sarah Brook and Simon Mahoodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07349209779383988178noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6966735710311932662.post-49157949411958070202009-10-22T09:18:00.001+07:002009-11-18T16:05:14.827+07:00

There are lots of macaques around the HQ, descendants of some released Rheus Macaques which have hybridized with the local Lon-tailed Macaques. Rhesus Macaques don’t come from round here. The cheeky monkeys raid the kitchen for food. Here is what the local hybrid macaques look like:   And this is what a real Long-tailed Macaque looks like:  Who could resist hybridizing with this?!

WWF-Vietnamnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6966735710311932662.post-46383850920025957142009-10-17T10:50:00.002+07:002009-11-18T16:09:46.854+07:00

After one week of intensive but enjoyable and enlightening training (I feel like my relationship with dogs has been simply but miraculously transformed for the better!), the dog and human teams have been decided. So who is with who? Well perhaps anyone could have guessed that the female would work better with the sensitive, highly strung (but intelligent!) border collie and the male with the

WWF-Vietnamnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6966735710311932662.post-9576332697418871602009-10-14T06:37:00.003+07:002009-11-18T16:11:26.862+07:00

I’m rapidly learning a thing or two about finding poo with dogs, and one thing I’ve learnt in the last couple of days is that working with dogs and looking for birds are incompatible activities!!! Aaaarrrgh!!! The first thing I think of when I see a piece of forest is what birds are in there? How can I get in? I want to see the birds, no, I need to see the birds! But when working with the

WWF-Vietnamnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6966735710311932662.post-91044091518320383382009-10-13T10:27:00.001+07:002009-11-18T16:12:57.120+07:00

It’s been a busy few days and so I’ve got a bit of blogging to catch up on. The day before yesterday we went to Ho Chi Minh city to meet Steven Weigley and the dogs, Chevy and Pepper from Packleader LLC, near Seattle in the USA. While waiting for Steve we saw the Thailand under 21s football team (soccer to those of you in the nations where they stole the word football and applied it to a

WWF-Vietnamnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6966735710311932662.post-80556844210429996642009-10-08T09:41:00.003+07:002009-11-18T16:15:28.573+07:00

Home Sweet Home: the grey hut behind the ranger station It’s a wet morning at our headquarters in the national park. We are currently staying at the park head-quarters, where we have now been for a couple of days. So, what are we doing here I hear you cry. Well, as you’ve probably guessed it’s got something to do with rhinos, in Vietnam. Rhinos in Vietnam!? Yes, there’s a few, probably less

WWF-Vietnamnoreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6966735710311932662.post-59417264127947785672009-10-02T10:51:00.003+07:002009-11-18T16:16:58.166+07:00

It feels like we've been preparing for this survey for ages! But finally, after almost a year of planning and fundraising, we have booked the tickets - there's no turning back now. At 11 am on Sunday we fly from Hanoi to Ho Chi Minh City in the south of Vietnam to begin six months of field work to determine the population status of the Javan Rhino in Vietnam. We'll write more about the survey and

WWF-Vietnamnoreply@blogger.com2