Daily behavioural budget of captive Sun Bear (Helarctos malayanus) in Bornean Sun Bear Conservation Centre Sandakan / Erma Rizah Abdul Sani

A study to determine the daily behavioural budget of captive sun bear was conducted in Bornean Sun Bear Conservation Centre (BSBCC) from 25 July 2016 until 2 September 2016. Subsequent to this, the differences between behaviour of captive sun bear in peak and nonpeak time was investigated by looking on their stereotypic behaviour. There were 16 sun bear selected and 13 activities pattern were observed with 5 minutes scan sampling observation method for every 5 minutes interval within over a period of 30 days. The result shows that generally most of the time spending by sun bear in BSBCC is foraging (25%). The rest were climbing (12%), sleeping (12%) and resting (9%), locomotion (8%), pacing (7%), social (6%), eating (6%), digging (5%), grooming (4%), aggression (3%), vocalization (2%), and others behaviour (1%). Pacing is the stereotypic behaviour which can be differentiated in peak and nonpeak time. It is the abnormal behaviour which is the bear in stress condition. In the peak time, pacing behaviour is high compared to nonpeak time. This is due to the human disturbance such as different types of visitor characteristic and behaviour. The result showed that the higher the bear disrupted with the external environment, the less time percentages for the bear spend to do their own activities and lead to stress condition. Since sun bear in captivity behave differently from their natural environment, the finding of this study contribute in providing information that beneficial for BSBCC to understand the bear in captive environment then provide the sun bear with the right standard conservation effort.