Cute little guy (or gal, didn’t check that closely). While I didn’t have the opportunity to see the orangutans in Borneo in as natural of a setting as I would’ve liked at the Rasa Ria Reserve) , it is simply amazing how you can see how “human” these animals are with some of their mannerisms (very much like a young child, dependent on help and desiring affection from a figure regarded as a parent ).
Now this is one of the images that I like that I actually *dislike*. What do I mean by that? I believe the animals in most zoos (North American and European zoos) are largely treated very well by the folks running the park. But I absolutely hate seeing the obvious boredom and angst on animal faces, including this Western Lowland Gorilla, when I go there…
I got bored today and decided to trek up to San Francisco Zoo to take some snaps today. While I think the zoo isn’t the best in the world, it is generally less busy than places like the San Diego Zoo & there are still a number of cool animals there (my favorite zoo, or favourite for you Brits, is still the Singapore Zoo). I snapped this picture of a Western Lowland Gorilla & was fairly pleased with the results.
The Sumatran Tiger is one of the most severely endangered of the big cats, largely due to habitat loss and illegal hunting in Indonesia, so the sad state of affairs is that it is quite likely that these animals may no longer exist outside of zoos in about twenty years (like many of the big cats). The Sumatran and Malay tigers are much smaller than the Bengal and Siberian tigers, but I’m still sure you wouldn’t want to run into one of them hiking around.
This little squirrel monkey was so cute at the Lok Kawi Wildlife Park in Sabah (Borneo), Malaysia. While the wildlife park is more like a zoo than a park, the animals appear to be well-taken care of and there is a variety of wildlife in the park that is native to Borneo (squirrel monkeys are not, obviously).
There were two difficulties with getting this shot: it was taken through a fence; and my lens on Sony DSLR was pretty fogged over from the air-conditioning from the ride over in the taxi. If anyone has any tricks on not having your lenses get condensation when moving from a cool to hot location, please let me know.
Koh Liblong is located in the Southern Thailand provinces of Trang. While the beaches aren’t as well-known as the other Southern Beaches (Phuket or Koh Samui), the added benefit is that you don’t have ten million tourists floating around to disrupt your ability to really “get away from it all”.
My wife and I stayed at a eco-friendly resort on Koh Libong, which meant that electricity (powered by a generator) was only available from 8am-5pm; this, of course, meant that hot water was only available during these times as well. The people that ran the resort were super friendly, very simple, and were probably more representative of the real Thailand than you would find in some of the more popular destinations (they ate their meals from what they caught in the sea that day).
The Proboscis Monkey, also known as the big-nosed monkey, is one of the more interesting members of the primate family. In addition to its strange looks, at least by human standards, the monkeys are only found in pockets of Malaysia and Indonesia (Borneo) and are disappearing at an alarming rate due to deforestation.
