Leading expeditions in Mongolia

It is early morning and I see clouds in the distance above the peaks of the jagged mountains around me. They sit heavier than yesterday and I think my view of the valley will be obstructed soon. With loaded cloud cover and fog, I am happy to be more active as my thick coat won't be such an impediment to movement during these hot days of late August.

As the fog rolls in and out, I am perplexed by strange colours across the rocky slopes. I have been here for 6 years and this is the first I see such reds, blues, and shades of green, grey, black, and brown. They are not the colours of the land that I am used to. I hope my cubs are safe in the den as I move about to defend my recent kill. I will keep a watchful eye on those puzzling figures across the way, though I am not sure what I will do if they come any closer.

I hear the sounds of diverse figures as they move about awkwardly on their side of the mountain. I can tell they are not built for this landscape. They appear flesh-like, but only in parts. The rest of their bodies appear smooth, as if they once had fur but now have a different type of layer over their bodies. I cannot make sense of what is on their bodies; some seem to have more protective layers than others. Some seem to have defenses and some seem to have odd shaped covers on their heads. I am not sure yet if they pose a threat to my home range, and I don't like that they are in my core area but I will wait and see what they do.

I see more clearly when the fog is lifted, and I can see right across to those figures. They appear to be looking back at me. My cubs are now well-hidden as I told them to stay put until I return. They are used to that by now even though they are only 2 months old. Soon I will teach them to hunt for ibex and Argali sheep in these areas. In 16 months, they will be on their own to find their way. I will know where they will settle as they will mark their preferred habitats through scrapes and sprays from their scent glands. There are not too many of us around anymore, many of our kind have not been able to find suitable areas to settle as we have lost a lot to a changing world that I have yet to make sense of.

I seem to remember my mother telling me of tales of strange figures searching for us. I wonder if these are those figures that she warned me about. I wish I listened more intently to the tales as I can't seem to remember what she advised me to do if I encounter them in closer proximity. I do recall that she said some of them seek out my fur and bones for some kind of ridiculous use. I also recall she warned me about making a kill of their animals they sometimes walk with.

If I seek out one of those smaller goats or sheep, I will likely be killed in return since those figures can be vengeful. I wonder if those figures across the valley now think I am responsible for loss of their domestic animals. I am sure now that they are only here to watch me intently as I lay in the shade of my marked rock.

It is now mid-morning, I can still hear those figures but I can no longer seem them. The fog has blanketed my valley and I can barely see down below. I hope the figures leave soon as I see rain in the distance and I will head for shelter with my pups. I will not be able to survey the landscape and keep a tally on their movements.

The next day is sunny and clear. I encourage my pups to follow me to my kill that I protect from the abundant black-eared kites and occasional vulture. I am sure they and any grey wolves nearby would enjoy their share but I cannot yet extend that courtesy until my pups have had their own.

It is late morning and I see those colorful inept figures again across the valley in the exact area as yesterday. They are keen on observing us, and I can assume they mean us no harm as they are obviously present. Any predator of sound mind would not be so inconspicuous. I wonder if they mean us well. Perhaps I should err on the side of caution, but I can't help myself from laughing at their slow bumbling movements across the steep terrain that I am so comfortable leaping and bounding across.

The colorful figures have broken up into two uneven groups. I notice the larger group has come closer to me and the smaller group remains put across the valley. The larger group is positioned just beneath me and their high pitched sounds echo up to me. It doesn't hurt my ears to hear them but they drown out the sounds of the winds whispering to the mountains carrying secrets of Mongolian proverbs.

I choose to test these figures that remain below me. They seem to watch me as I move about the shadows of the rocks. Their sounds reach new highs every time I move. I wonder what could be so interesting. As long as they remain distant from my kill and pups, I will remain tolerant. Perhaps they are learning something about me to take back to their fellow mates in other areas to help conserve the lands that my young will be dependent on. I cannot roar down to them to keep their distance as my anatomy has not evolved that way like my feline cousins. But I can certainly show my metre long body and nearly as long tail as I display my skills of agility.

I realize I am not sure they know who I am and perhaps that is what they are doing here. We share the commonality of fascination in observing each other. If I could talk to them I would tell them I am not the Yeti, nor the Sasquatch. I am the Snow Leopard of the Altai Mountains of Mongolia. I may be elusive, I may be secretive, but to search for me is not futile.

Snow leopard by Joan Poor, Aug. 28, 2014. Mongolia.

Wild polar bears of Churchill, Manitoba

For the last 6 years, I have had the pleasure and opportunity to lead a variety of natural history and wildlife trips for Natural Habitat Adventures. From guiding beluga whale trips in Northern Canada to panda bear and Asiatic black bear trips in China, I have been very fortunate. But the trip with the highest potential for impact is the polar bears of Churchill. And it is about time that I write a blog about this! (Check out WWF's write up about me!)

In brief, this trip involves bouncing along in giant vehicles (e.g. the height of the tires are above my head) to witness the polar bear migration to the shores of the southern (West) Hudson Bay as they (impatiently) wait for sea ice to form. 

The trip is more than just about viewing polar bears. The trip is about understanding bears as the magicians that they are. Everything is a phenomenon in polar bears. From the pregnant females that "hibernate", the dropping of scat during "walking hibernation", the need for sparring practice, the viscosity of their tears, and much more, polar bears are a true marvel of nature. Slaves to their extreme ability to pick up scents, polar bears are wondrous animals to observe as they choose paths that might elicit their curiosity. 

It is easy to understand this type of drive in polar bears as they figure out their world. We seem to share this ambition to find and get to the end of our individual worlds. I once heard that searching for meaning in our lives is better than living a life of avoiding discomfort. 

This was a stress study in humans that showed that harnessing the positives of stress was possible. Physical stress is a way that our bodies prepare us for events but there is a way to maintain a normal blood vessel dilation, with a raised heart rate (e.g. that feeling in your chest when you know your heart is racing due to some event or thing that is stressful). This study showed that reaching out to others and using our ability to be compassionate towards each other is one way of doing just that to handle stress. In other words, stress can lead to compassion, which can lead to courage. 

What is the connection with this and polar bears? Well, the future of polar bears stresses me out. And polar bears elicit compassion in multiple ways. My clients on the trips I lead often marvel at how "cute" bears are, and usually someone will say out loud how much they want to give them a hug. I can see why they think that, but we need to remember that polar bears are not adorable; they are majestic and awesome - in the real sense of the word “awe”. 

This leads me to wonder about using the effect of polar bears on people to take on courageous acts to preserve what is important to us (e.g. healthy free-roaming animals and their habitats, clean water, ecosystem productivity, etc.). Members of the environmental movement since the 1970s (and even before) have tried to drive that kind of change many times over with telling images of our world changing. Along those lines, there is nothing quite like looking into the eyes of a wild polar bear and having that moment define what you might say and do back on a street corner in a bustling city. 

I believe a balance is possible in all this, but we are far from sorting out our political (including economic and social) and environmental dilemmas and internal struggles. Personally, I struggle with the environmental impacts of the choices I make in my life. 

It is not easy for anyone, really. But we have to try to help each other out, if anything, for the sake of the future of the reigning king of the arctic kingdom, the polar bears.  

Moon Bear Rescue Centre

It’s a hot sticky day in Chengdu, China, and I lead the last group of the Wild and Ancient China trips to the Moon Bear Rescue Centre. I warn them of the graphic material that is exhibited in the info centre, but I also encourage them to head inside as the knowledge gained is empowering for anyone wishing to be a conservation representative. The posters, photographs, and objects are real items from inhumane bear farms where over 7,000 moon bears are still kept alive simply for bile extraction.

In brief, moon bears (Ursus thibetanus) also referred to as Asiatic black bears, Tibetan black bears, or Himalayan black bears depending on the subspecies, produce a considerable amount of bile compared with other bear species. Unfortunately, Traditional Chinese Medicine has relied on bear bile to cure a range of ailments from heart disease, colon illnesses, to fevers. Some companies even use bear bile as an additive in non-medical products such as toothpaste.


Considering the main product extracted from bear bile, ursodeoxycholic acid, can be produced synthetically and over 50 herbal alternatives exist, the use of bear bile in pharmaceutical products is unnecessary. Nevertheless, the pressure of poaching this endangered species was considerably high and in search of a wildlife management solution, the Chinese, Korean, and Vietnamese governments decided to allow the use of bear farms. Basically, a moon bear is placed in a cage, also known as a crush cage, and compressed into a space far less than the bear’s average body mass would normally fit. To extract the bile, catheters are inserted into the bear and left inside the bear to facilitate continuous bile extraction by bear bile farmers. Infections, illnesses, and other medical complications often take a toll on the bear, and along with psychological distress, a bear in a bile farm can suffer considerably from pain and succumb to a slow death.


In efforts to cease the bear bile farming, Jill Robinson (founder and CEO of Animals Asia Foundation) visited these farms during the early 1980s. She struck a deal with the Chinese government in 2000 to release 500 bears to her for rehabilitation and she created the Moon Bear Rescue Centre as a place where each bear can have a chance at a life again, as a bear. She has only received 270 bears to date, but she remains as a great model for taking chances and leading a slow but very important animal welfare and conservation revolution.

Nearing the end of our tour of the Moon Bear Rescue Centre, we arrive at the gift shop. I encourage the guests to peruse the items for sale in support of the Centre, but I slowly become aware of an individual’s voice speaking just outside the shop in an English accent. I step outside to take a peak and immediately recognize the face and voice of moon bear conservation. It is Jill Robinson!

I introduce myself and mention both Natural Habitat Adventures as well as my PhD studies. Jill is a very pleasant woman, and we get along cheerily. After meeting some guests in the group, Jill turns to me and asks if I have about 5 min to spare so she can show us a few things. I happily reply “of course”, and she leads us to the medical facilities of the Centre. In one room, a bear is having xrays taken, and in another room a bear is having cataract surgery.

We are allowed to enter both rooms, interact with the bears, and discuss issues with the veterinarians on site. It is an amazing and unique opportunity that will undoubtedly make a long-lasting impact on everyone, in support of Jill’s rescue efforts, one moon bear at a time.

Playful Giant Pandas

Its 8am and I am off to the Giant Panda kindergarten! Appropriately labeled as such, the kindergarten is a place for one year old cubs to get to know their world and discover the limits, if any, of their abilities as a bear. But first I pass the nursery where two 4 week cubs lay flat on their bellies in incubators barely opening their eyes. If they could, they would see the cooing faces of humans peeking through the windows. These cubs are all current products of the Giant Panda breeding program at the Bifengxia base of the CCRCP. The breeding program is the best response thus far that pandas have been provided for bringing their population back from the brink of extinction.


Fisher Price and FIFA would be happy enterprises if they could see what I could. Seven little pandas are bouncing around after their morning meal of bamboo, apples, and carrots, and chucking around a soccer ball and tripping over plastic toys. The pandas tug at the workers in their enclosure thinking they may be walking bamboo, and alas discover these two-legged animals are barely edible. Some pandas in a corner are engaged in a tug of war with a large bamboo shoot, while others roll over, around, and fall head over heels from a wooden platform built just for that purpose.


Later in the morning, some of my clients have opted to pay for an exclusive encounter session where they are allowed to enter an enclosure with juvenile panda bears. I am also allowed in as their photographer and before I know it little panda bears are wondering if I am walking bamboo too. While maximizing photo opportunities for my clients, I am nearly toppled over by a couple of pandas who have snuck up on me to wrap themselves around my leg. It is an unbelievable experience to feel the strength of a little bear as it wraps itself tightly around in hopes that I might taste good or maybe just pat down the coarseness of its fur. It is hard to know what the young bears are actually after, but the title of panda kindergarten is certainly well deserved. Without the distraction of an apple, the young bears seem inexhaustible in their energy levels and it is really a shame they are likely to never experience the wild as their true home.

As one of the world’s most elusive animals in their natural habitat, it is almost impossible to see a wild panda bear, and even more unlikely to ever release a captive bear to the natural world. Although designed for a solitary life, the bears of the breeding program grow up together as their habitats are not secure and release sites are far from political agendas. Deforestation and other factors contributing to habitat loss are major detriments to the remaining 2,000 or so (this number is still debated after 30 years of research) wild panda bears. Enhancing the wild population with the captive breeding program is not yet feasible and so it seems the vision of population recovery is still just a dream.

Who is this Lesser (aka Red) Panda?

I have returned from China – a place where government censorship has prevented me from updating my blog. I will post just a few things in the next few days before I am off for polar bear season soon. To start – well its seems people know of the Giant Panda bear, the cute, furry, black and white species that gave rise to what is probably the world’s most famous conservation organization, the World Wildlife Fund. But few know of the Lesser Panda, or otherwise known as the Red Panda species. Just as cute, just as furry, and likely just as endangered, the Lesser Panda is no less of a species deserving of a blog!


Tough to track in the wild, the Lesser Panda is a species to see at the China Conservation and Research Center for the Giant Panda (CCRCP), Chengdu, China. It is easy for me to see how this small animal might help herald the conservation efforts of the Giant Panda - an issue in my opinion that should be carefully debated.

Showing off its pretty fur, I see this little animal captivate the attention of onlookers around me at the CCRCP even though it is barely engaging in any kind of active or exciting display. There is something witty in its eyes though, and something cunning. It is of the sort that you see when you catch a raccoon red handed in your garbage as he or she is scattering it around for all your neighbours to see the next morning.

Similar to the Giant Panda, the Lesser Panda’s genetic lineage is confused and arguable. This little animal, comparable in size to a large raccoon, has bounced back and forth in its phylogenetric tree and is now considered to be in a family of its own. Although not much really to do with a cat as its latin name might suggest; it translates to“shining cat”, and the animal species doesn’t have much to do with bears either. Unfortunately preferring habitats similar to the Giant Panda, the Lesser Panda is dependent upon the highland forests of China. This species searches the remaining patches of forests to satisfy a diet of bamboo. Worldwide, the abundance is thought to be in the range of 36,000 to 75,000; indeed there is not much in the way of confidence in those numbers!

Looking for the “good” in “goodbye”

How do you take in that one last look around the glory of the African savannah? How do you breathe in that one last wild wind? How do you peer into the eyes of a devilish monkey one last time? How do you put a finite count on the spots of a giraffe or the stripes of a zebra?

I’ve realized there really is very little good in a goodbye, but there is a lot in the fond memories to take back. In the hopes that my friendships and life lessons I have acquired here shall not disappear, I bid adieu to everyone and everything on Lewa. I wish it were a temporary adieu as much as I hope I leave behind a positive effect in all that I could do in the little time I was here.

Lewa sees many students, researchers, and tourists come and go – each one I presume to feel the same as I do now as I prepare to leave. The people and animals at Lewa are as impacting as the brutal sounds of the lions at night roaring over their feast; an unforgettable and very welcome break of a sweet dream. I was glad I never got used to the grunts of the lions and screams of the other nocturnal animals as each time was just as exciting as the previous one. For Lewa, for Kenya, for Africa, I hope the feelings associated with my experiences here resonate as loudly as a thunderstorm during a midsummer’s night until I am able to return as quickly as my time has passed.

I return to Toronto for 10 days, and head out to Beijing and other destinations in China for several weeks as an Expedition Leader for panda bear trips with Natural Habitat Adventures. Until then, I will collect my thoughts, questions and answers, and dreams….I shall write again soon.

Schools

Its winding down to the end of my time here, and I’ve been occupied writing out my report/analysis of the rhino monitoring program. Getting out in the field is still at the forefront of my mind, and I embark on every opportunity. Yesterday was a day to join on a venture to nearby rural schools supported by Lewa.

The tasks at hand were to take height and weight measurements of each child in primary school for the purposes of analyzing the success of the feeding programme. In brief, many rural schools are supported by various organizations in the form of infrastructure and/or feeding programmes. Feeding programmes provide two meals a day to children who would likely not even have a chance to eat every day. Parents send their kids to school knowing they will be fed, and schools are supportive since it is well known that concentration levels are directly proportional to full stomachs. Given a handful of basic foods in the mixed mush form of either porridge, corn, maize meal, and/or beans, the children are thought to have a greater chance of survival and hopefully success in their intended achievements.




Heading off to the schools, I expected a lot and a little. I expected what I experienced in the Philippines a few years ago; to be enough of a mystery to those I encountered that I was followed incessantly as numerous pairs of young eyes tried to make sense of who and what I was. I expected to be uncomfortable as the obvious differences unfold between who these young people are and what I might be to them.

It was neither of those.

Of course, the differences were unmistakable, and many times I felt some very curious little fingers behind me tugging at my curls. For the most part though, it was relatively still with content and inquisitive stares overcastting whatever other thoughts the children may have been experiencing during the time we, the foreigners, were present at their school.



Among us was a reproductive health educator with a mandate to inform and discuss serious issues with the young women of the school. The educator took on tough, private, and restricted topics such as female circumcision and tried to convey the message to say no. Whether this choice is a right for these women is a challenge since it may ultimately mean that a non-obliging young woman and her mother may be abused and kicked out of the household with nowhere to hide and/or begin a new life. Sanitary products donated by the staff at Lewa were also distributed to these women, as without they are unable to attend school. Missing a week’s worth of school can be catastrophic for a woman trying to establish a niche for herself in a world where the basics of life namely food, water, and shelter, may be commodities.



One Lewa staff member approached each of us to say one thing, even if it was just a hello or to offer sage words to these women. The only thing I could say were the age-old clichés that I had been thinking about for awhile, lessons that I hope we can all follow and remember when enlightening worlds seems so far away: ‘always remember to follow your dreams, be yourself, and never give up’. I don’t know what or how, if at all, my words could impact these women, and I will probably never know. But I do hope that our presence in the schools that day does something beneficial, and does not harbor on the imbalances of the world’s distribution of wealth and the injustices of what is right for whom.