RFI: Mammals especially bats areound Kuala Lumpur
Hello,
I will have few days available in Kuala Lumpur, Fraser Hill and Taman Negara in August. My questions are:
– Are there bat caves easy to see around Kuala Lumpur? Dark Cave of Batu Caves is closed since January 2019.
– What is the current gen of seeing tapir at Taman Negara? People in the past compained of noisy general visitors and awkward and overbooked hides where this animal can be seen.
– Other mammal information, other than langurs and macaques would be helpful.
best,
Jurek Dyczkowski
3 Comments
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Stephen Babbs
Sorry I meant to add that I do get the impression they are easier to see than they were but I don’t have figures to back that up. Hides are easy to book when you are there but I couldn’t find a way to book them until you get there – but that’s the same for everyone. You probably want a couple of nights in case they are booked on one. We booked two nights in case we failed but didn’t do second. No refund but dirt cheap. Obviously we let them know so the hide was available for others. Good spotlighting around the resort area. http://www.stevebabbs.com/home/trip-reports/2018malaysia
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Vladimir Dinets
Templer Park is a very good forest not far from KL. In 2002 I got 17 species of mammals there in just 2 days, including moonrat, langurs and clawless otters, plus a bunch of nice bats mistnetted by local Uni students. It has a small bat cave but it’s difficult to find, if I remember correctly.
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Stephen Babbs
I went last year. I didn’t see any bats when I went to the dark cave anyway. I saw tapir in one night at Kumbang hide having failed in three previous attempts on two previous trips. All of my visits have included noisy people even once when they, and I, shouldn’t have been there as the hide was officially closed doe to a ‘rogue’ elephant.
Most recently a group of people arrived with Malay guides and cooked dinner under the hide. I asked them to be quiet. they said nothing comes until very late and basically I was in no mood to fail again and so was pretty firm. (Giardia not helping my mood!) They got a lot quieter and most entered the hide. A tapir arrived at nine and stayed until 11.10 when it was briefly joined by another. It was back again 20 minutes later. I went to bed not long after that – being really rather ill – but I got up briefly at 3.30am and one was showing.
I will say I did bond with my hide mates by passing my binoculars around and we parted with smiles and goodbyes in the morning.