Malaysia Orang-Utan Experience

Day 1: Arrival and Welcome

You will met upon arrival at the airport and then transferred to your twin share accommodation. You will enjoy a welcome dinner and briefing in the evening.

Overnight in Kuala Lumpur.

Day 2: Orientation
After breakfast, you will be transferred to your project site: Zoo Negara. Upon arrival, you will meet your programme coordinator who will show you to your accommodation and then take you on a short zoo orientation.

You will be given a thorough health and safety talk, a tour of the zoo and then you will go shopping for food etc.

Overnight in Negara.

Days 3 to 16: Project Days
A typical working day as a volunteer will start around 8am and finish around 5pm. Usually, weekends are given as off days. During your free time you may choose to explore other parts of Malaysia at your own expense or stay at the volunteer accommodation.

This is real hand-on stuff – cleaning, feeding and maintenance – and it will give you deep insight into the lives of these amazing animals. An important part of the life at a zoo is the work that goes on to keep the animals happy and stimulated. You’ll have the chance to take part in this too and, if you’re lucky, you might get to know individual animals – and they you. Not many things more exciting than being recognised as an individual by a wild animal!

This zoo houses more than 5,000 animals including; camels, sun bears, pythons and tigers as well, and there’s every possibility that you’ll get to work with them as well.

Overnight from days 3 to 16 in Negara.

Day 17: Departure from Kuala Lumpur to Sandakan
Transfer from Zoo to airport for your late afternoon flight out to Sandakan, Sabah. Airfare not included. You will be met by a driver who will transfer you to the dormitory. You will arrive late evening and after a quick dinner and orientation, you will sleep lulled by the sounds of the Borneo Jungle.

Day 18 to 26: Project days Sukau

Once you have been shown to your accommodation, you will be given a thorough Health & Safety briefing as well as an orientation around the village.

For the next 2 weeks, you will live within a wildlife sanctuary among the local tribe: the gentle ‘Orang Sungai’. One of your roles on this project involves wildlife observation to collect important wildlife population data. You will also be helping with important habitat restoration work that involves tree-planting and maintenance activities in high priority areas. This work is crucial in connecting fragmented forests in the area to encourage healthy orang-utan and pygmy elephant populations. While the majority of the project is helping with the habitat restoration, there is a small community aspect to the project on which you will be helping to develop conservation based programmes at the local schools. This is hugely important as the children at the schools will in the long term be the guardians of the rainforest!

Day 27: Depart Sukau after breakfast for Sepilok.
Walk through the Rainforest Discovery Centre to reinforce what you have learned about the rainforest during your time on the project. After lunch, visit the world-famous Sepilok Orang-utan Rehabilitation Centre where you will learn about the challenges of orang-utan rehabilitaion. Once you have had the learning session, you will head into Sandakan where you will check into accommodation. You will then have time free to explore at your leisure, why not try to catch the sunset from the Ba-Lin bar at the rooftop of Nak Hotel.

Day 28:Departure
Check out and transfer to Sandakan Airport.

Optional: independent travel to Kota Kinabalu or Turtle Islands.

Please note: Changes to the activities will occur subject to weather conditions, festivities, zoo and project requirements. Some or all of the above activities may or may not be included on your itinerary. Other activities not mentioned above may also be included on your itinerary subject to weather conditions, community and project requirements. 

During the programme you will either care for the animals at the zoo or help towards conservation with habitat restoration and community development. Some of the possible activities that you may be involved with are listed below:

Husbandry: This involves cleaning cages and feeding. You will rotate working with different animals depending on the needs of the zoo, the keepers, or the animals themselves within the primates or ape section as well as in other sections. Cleaning is vital to the zoo as better hygiene helps to prevent disease. You must be capable of cleaning up animal faeces - this can be extremely smelly!!

Some daily maintenance work may be included and you always have to clean up after enrichment activities.

Enrichment: The idea of enrichment is to stimulate the animals and improve their living conditions as much as possible to mimic their natural habitat. Some sample activities are:

• Provide leaves in cages for bedding and nesting purposes
• Buy special fruit to give a variation on diet
• Put branches from fig or fruit trees in their homes to observe behaviour
• Rope work - make this fun and varied for the animal
• Hiding food around cages to encourage foraging behaviour

Construction: You may be asked to design and work on small construction projects to improve the night dens or enclosures of selected animals, this may include assisting in building new exhibits and extensions to improve the zoo facilities, or improving existing exhibits by adding furniture or painting.

Education: There is an education centre and library at the zoo. Volunteers should learn as much as possible about the animals. You may be asked to guide and talk to school children about them. You may also be asked to prepare displays and information on them. 

Safety in the zoo is paramount and contact with the animals will be carefully supervised. Please remember this and do what the keepers tell you to do. The orangutans might be in a zoo, but this doesn’t mean they’re tame. 

Wildlife Population Density Data Collection: This entails cruising on the river to observe and record the endangered wildlife roaming the forest along the river banks. A lot of time is spent observing wildlife and their habitat. This will be done from a boat cruising along the main river and its tributaries within the wildlife sanctuary;

Habitat Restoration: The most crucial activity ensuring the survival of wildlife. You will take part in tree planting, nursery care and seedling generation, sapling maintenance, mulching & composting, clearing invasive species and also tree growth data recording. The planting of trees will be in sections identified as high priority and will build towards the creation of corridors for wildlife to move from one section of a sanctuary to another;

Education Programme: Spend half a day with school children of the community to work on conservation issues that the children deal with on a daily basis and emphasise their immediate and personal impact on conservation. You will be provided with a framework and the facilitator will guide you in the planning of this session;

Community Development: This involves the development of a continuous project with the community of the local village. Volunteers will interact with the community on various levels while working on this project. You will learn some local skills required for their daily livelihood and maybe assist them as well;

Rumble in the Jungle: The mysterious tropical rainforest of Borneo has a lot to offer not by going jungle trekking. As an introduction to the flora and fauna of the rainforest, you will take the time to understand what the rainforest has been traditionally offering the inhabitants in terms of medication, food and survival;

Cultural and Community Interaction: Living and contributing back to the community is a big part of this programme. Lunch and dinners will be in the private homes of individual villagers. Take time for them to warm up to you and you will get to hear about their daily lives, chat with the children, learn about their family structure and see how the Orang Sungai have been living off the rivers and jungles for centuries.

Please Note: Not all of the above activities would be included on your itinerary. Changes to the activities will occur subject to weather conditions, school calendar, community and project requirements. Activities not listed above may also be included.