Rescued tarsier to provide info on home range

A male tarsier (Tarsius syrichta), about the size of the palm of an adult, was rescued from a new oil palm plantation on March 7, and has since been fitted with a radio collar to identify its home range.

The nocturnal primate was found on land owned by villagers near the Gomantong area by the father of Danau Girang Field Centre (DGFC) field research assistant Saroto Payar, who then brought it back to the Centre.

Cardiff University student Alice Miles, who is leading a project on the ecology of tarsier and slow loris at the DGFC, said the rescued animal was kept in a cage for a day and fed with insects before it was released into the forest.

“In the evening, we fitted him with a radio-collar and released him into the wild. We named him Lad which is short for “ladang” or plantation in Bahasa Malaysia, and which also refers to males in English.

“The following night, we went back to the forest and looked for him using our telemetry equipment.

“Lad was found about 150 to 200 metres from where he was released, hunting on the ground”, Miles said.

She said this in a press release jointly issued by the Sabah Wildlife Department and DGFC.

DGFC director Dr Benoit Goossens said understanding habitat needs, diet and social organisation of tarsiers were key to forming conservation policies for the unique creatures.

“Apart from Lad, we have so far collared four tarsiers in the vicinity of the field centre in Lot 6 of the Lower Kinabatangan Wildlife Sanctuary.

“Recently, two females were fitted with radio collars enabling us to identify their sleeping sites and map their home range. We hope that Lad will meet one of these two females in the near future,” Goossens said.

He said the nocturnal primate project at DGFC is funded by three American zoos — Columbus, Cleveland and Phoenix.

Source: Bernama