Look that! Eagle, right?

Let's get to know our Hornbill Steward

My name is Zainal Abidin from Merapoh. I am married and have four children.

My previous job as tour guide started in the year 1991 until 2005.

But now I work at Merapoh as a food seller, selling Roti Canai and various other food.

Assalamualaikum and Good Morning.

My name is Sabri. I am tour guide at Taman Negara Merapoh. Now I work with MRS as a Hornbill Steward.

When I work as a Hornbill Steward, I can learn a lot of knowledge, specially to recognize many species of bird

and other animals.

One more thing, I can bring my children to see the hornbill.

To see how the hornbill feed their chick and their nesting behaviour. I can teach my children by observing them.

Before this, I really want to be a birder.

Luckily now, I am a Hornbill Steward and get a chance to see many types of bird and learn about it.

There are many teachers from MRS that teach me about sound of bird, ways of identifying type of bird species and their habitat.

Long time ago, there are many animals. I stay far away from people, at Kampung Bekong.

Long time ago, there are many animals at there. In the old days, when I open the land.

We can see elephant and tiger. But now, it is quite difficult to see again this type of animal.

When I was young, my childhood memory is playing a lastik and bird or squirrel become the target.

But now the bird population at here slowly decreasing. For example, Straw-headed Bulbul.

In this village, this bird may be gone, but hopefully it will be at Taman Negara. This is what I saw.

Now I’m aware that play a lastik before was wrong.

This is because we can lead to decreasing bird population and extinction.

I would like to educate my children to know the animals in

the surrounding area such as birds, squirrels and other animals.

I joined the Hornbill Steward in Merapoh.

My experience as Hornbill Steward, I’m so lucky to see the nesting of hornbill.

I already found two species of hornbill. The first species is Rhinoceros Hornbill.

Second, Black Hornbill or known as Enggang Gatal Birah in Malay.

We observe the nesting of hornbill to study their diet and their behaviour.

The period of time taken by the chick to fledging out from the nest and type of food they eat.

I learned many things from there.

I’m very happy when I have a chance to saw the chick fledging out from their nest in front of my eyes.

I saw the chick successfully fledging out its body from its nest through a small hole.

That’s the best thing I’ve seen.

I also learned the way male hornbill feed on female and their chick that are in the nest. This is a very valuable experience for me.

What is the greatness of Gods power.

To saw the male feed the female and their chick and the way male survive outside.

Now, I am very excited to see Helmeted Hornbill.

I really want to see what the Helmeted Hornbill’s nest of looks like and its eating behaviour.

For now, we have not found a Helmeted Hornbill nest here.

Helmeted Hornbill or known as Burung Enggang Tebang Mentua. The Helmeted Hornbill’s sound is unique.

This hornbill has their own fairy tale story. Burung Enggang Tebang Mentua, the story is start

When he was married, he lived with his parents-in-law.

One day, there was a fight going on between them and he decided to cut down his house.

When his house collapsed, he laughed contentedly. From this story, this hornbill got its name.

From observation at Hornbill Valley, I found that Hornbill also eat Durian fruit, something I had never known before.

This is very rare. Another type of diet, they eat squirrels and rats.

They have their own diet preference and make them different from other birds. Eagles will eat meat as their food.

Black Hornbill always play and fly in high areas and I think their nest will also be in tall trees.

When I saw the nest, the nest very low from the ground around 2-3 feet. This is very rare for me.

I came to the Taman Negara to do a Hornbill census.

I was able to identify many species of birds and bird sounds. I learned a lot of things.

From one point to the next point, I found many animals, such as deer.

My favourite experience was when using this trail, I saw a Wrinkled Hornbill or Enggang Berkedut.

As a birder, seeing the Wrinkled Hornbill is very rare, and I was very lucky to have the chance to see it.

Before this, I only saw it without knowing what kind of bird.

But after I worked with MRS and learned about bird, I was able to figure out what species of bird it was when I discovered it.

Now I know the types of birds that are categorized as rare species.

We need to tell the public how important our research is to this project.

If people do not know the importance of wildlife to humans.

This is very good for future generations, if we do not take care it from now on.

The next generation does not know it. For example, my children do not know some animals.

Like, deer. They do not know.

So, we need to give exposure to them. For future generations

and for all generations. If we only give exposure to children and their parents do not know. This will not work.

Therefore, we need to teach all generation to understand, why wildlife very important.

If not, if we just tell the children and the parents do not know. They will also kill the animals.

They go out hunting. If parents knew, they would tell their kids.

This is very important for future generations. This is my opinion and we need to tell them.

A good example is a flying squirrel. Without them, pollination for Durian trees and other trees would not have taken place.

Another example is the bat, if the bat goes extinct it is possible that the Durian tree will no longer bear fruit.

We must together with NGOs and PERHILITAN provide information and exposure. Invite locals to know this and know its importance.

We need together to raise the awareness among local community.

Efforts are indeed to explain and provide knowledge to the local community about the importance of environment and animals.

The people here really love animals and forests because our foundation is tourism.

The first generation opened up the land and also did activities like hunting, but the second generation was different.

They will be thinking of the consequences for every action they take. In this field of ecotourism, we love forests.

Cooperation between the villagers and the NGO is very important.

Sometimes, NGOs does not understand what locals want and do not want.

Actually in this case, we should not only meet with the village head.

But we need to meet everyone from various levels and explain the purpose of the NGOs being here, Merapoh.

NGOs have a good purpose for the locals when they are here.

I urge everyone to take care our environment, wildlife, and plants in Malaysia.