My volunteer experience here wouldn’t be completed if not because of them, the lorises. It was all started in Monday, December 16th 2019, my first shift…
Me and the team supposed to observe Lucu, one of the lorises who was considered one of the closest lorises to be spotted nearby the village. But then the rain came heavy and the fog was everywhere, we barely saw anything. We took shelter under a wooden house near the field, but we couldn’t continue the observation because the rain didn’t stop at all. We came home empty handed.
The next day, I came with Zaldo, another volunteer who was in the same shift as me, to Lupac’s place. It was exactly beside people’s gardens. Lupac was a small female loris. When we first spotted her, she was with another loris! It was bigger than her, and they groomed each other. It was interesting to see how they behaved in social interaction with other lorises—I didn’t regret coming with Zaldo at that time. Loris was known to be a solitary individual, so it is cool to find such social behaviour. For the whole three hours we only saw them doing social interactions toward each other. Anyway, it was found out that the bigger loris was an uncollared adult, precisely to be a male. Well, a mating moment, I supposed.
But then, a surprise came at the last two hours. A loris came to interrupt and it was collared! We found out that it was Dindi, a male loris who lived nearby the area of Lupac. Dindi was suggested to Lupac’s mate, it was surprising. If Dindi supposed to be Lupac’s mate, then who was the uncollarred one? And eventually, Dindi and the uncollared one had some kind of interaction like throwing each other out from Lupac’s territory. Sophie and I had some theories that perhaps Lupac had an affair with the uncollared male. So basically, she cheated on Dindi! Being the loyal male he was, Dindi fought for Lupac but eventually lost in it. So, he gave up—showed by he climbed down the tree and walked on the ground. Lupac, in a very regretful way, chased Dindi down the ground and went to his place! Oh My God! It was so much interesting I barely took a rest on it. Sophie even said that it was the first time for her seeing such thing like that! At the end of the shift, we ended up observing only Lupac who eventually was gave up and sat on the avocado tree. It was amazing!
Sleepsite was meant to be a shift where all you had to do was checking the lorises’s sleeping sites and made sure they were already in their place. Mr. Yiyi took me with the project’s bike to the sleeping sites. It was breathtaking! I mean, we had to go through all those dirt road with only a really old bike and went all the way up the mountain. The lorises whose residences were up the hill were Shirley (female), Shanti (female), Fernando (male), Tereh (female), and Acil (male). The ones in the middle hill were Ombe (female), Jaimi (male), Mimi (female), and Xena (female). The ones down the hill—I supposed you guys would know some of them—were Lucu (female), Dindi (male), Rufio (male), LN (male), and Lupac (female). It took about two and a half hours to get all their sleeping sites, and it was exciting. We found an eagle too around the upper site, it was flying, looking for its preys. I never thought that Sleepsite shift would be this exciting.
Loris, to me, is the very primate that you don’t want it to be extinct, especially after you see their eyes in the night. They are very unique. They are the only venomous primate in the world, and one of the best populations of lorises is right here in Garut—to be exact is Mount Papandayan. It was only my first two weeks and I can’t wait to see what’s next!
