Tawau Hills Park Wildlife Expedition 2017-2018

1StopBorneo Wildlife is in collaboration with Sabah parks and has embarked on a one year wildlife survey at Tawau Hills Park, a state park on the east coast of Borneo. It is being led by Shavez Cheema and Chun Xing Wong under the supervision of Dr. John Payne. Team members also include Koid Qian Qun, Intan Dols and Novi Dols. The Sabah Parks team consists of Affendi bin Johari Ariff, Suzana Nasib, Frederic Francis Gansau @ Johan and Jamil Kasmin

This wildlife expedition aims to compare mammals and ground bird diversity in different microhabitats between lowland and lower montane rainforest in Tawau Hills Park. This expedition also seeks to find anything new and interesting in this state park. A target of ours is that in one year’s time the team will work on scientific publications as well as public friendly informative books regarding the finds and about the park itself. A centralized database for the fauna found in the park is also being created and we are inviting anyone from the public who has any data and knowledge on fauna such as mammals, birds, snakes, frogs, turtles from the state park and would like to collaborate on this project. All data and photographs will be duly credited and the ownership will be kept by the original contributors. Other interesting fauna such as moths, beetles and so on are also welcome.

15 camera traps have been deployed by the team with the assistance Sabah Parks Research team at Tawau Hills Park. Next expedition outings will be towards the end of January and early February 2018. Anyone who is interested to join the expedition and contribute data can email 1stopborneo@gmail.com or log on to Facebook and visit ‘1stopborneo wildlife’.

Some of the interesting finds during the first and second expedition trip in July 2017 & September 2017 were the rare white crown hornbills, helmeted hornbills, banded civets, gibbons, red leaf monkeys, and even two different species of frogs mating together. 1StopBorneo Wildlife would like to thank Sabah Parks for their utmost support and dedication to protect this park, particularly to Remi Ripin for supporting this project.

Photos attached:

1) Team photo with supervisor Dr John Payne

From Left to Right : Dr.John Payne(supervisor),Chun Xing Wong, Hans Dols, Novi Dols, Intan Dols, Koid Qian and Shavez Cheema(team leader)

September team 2017. From left to right Suzana,Chun Xing,Koid,Shavez,Marcel,Hwang Yu Fue and Hoo Puikit

Rare white crown hornbill – Shavez Cheema

Wild male gibbon photo by Shavez Cheema

Red Leaf Monkey – photo by Chun Xing Wong

6) with electrifying patterns

Photo by Chun Xing Wong