otter survey from Pantai Remis to Penang

I did an otter survey along the west coast, from Pantai Remis to the islands around Penang way back in the early 90s. An amateur otter breeder from England, Elizabeth Joy, requested my help in locating the hairy-nosed otter. In those days, the hairy-nosed otter was thought to be extinct as it was never seen for more than 20 years in the region. So based on the old records by Medway, we decided to look for the species along the west coast. Elizabeth hired a live-on diving boat from Penang for 10 days to enable us to survey along the coastline. The boat has three crew members, a pilot, co-pilot and a helper. The boat will be our home for the next 10 days. I met Elizabeth when the boat stopped for supplies and freshwater at Port Weld. " Elizabeth Joy I presumed?" That was my introduction upon seeing a middle-aged English lady standing on the jetty. " You must be Bond. Boy, am I glad to see you. Welcome aboard." I found out that two of her friends, a husband and wife, followed Elizabeth on the trip. Life on the boat is a luxury, lots of fresh seafood and cigarettes. Elizabeth likes smoking and she normally bought Benson and Hedges by the carton. " They are mighty cheap here compared to London" was her remarks everytime she bought a carton of Benson and Hedges. The boat was very spacious for us. It has a lower and upper deck. I stayed on the lower deck with the crew while Elizabeth and her friends stayed on the upper deck. Our pilot turned out to be an excellent cook and this made our trip an enjoyable one. From Port Weld we moved to the mangroves in Matang Forest. We took a fibreglass boat and search for otters in the small rivers among the mangroves. We only saw smooth-coated otters and small-clawed otters but no hairy-nosed otter. Actually I am not sure how the hairy-nosed otter looked like as I have never seen them before. For all I know, the rhinarium is shaped like a shield and is fully covered by hairs. (Only after I caught the hairy-nosed otter in southern Thailand did I understood what it meant by the rhinarium being covered by hairs). Later, we went further down to Teluk Intan. We stopped at Telok Intan to buy udang galah from several boys who were fishing at the jetty before going up the Perak River. Initially we planned to go up the river but had to turn back as the river was too shallow for the big boat to navigate. We spent the night in the river before going back to the sea the next day. We stopped at Pantai Remis to make a phone call to Hifni of USM. He was supposed to join us but could not do so due to other commitments. Elizabeth took the opportunity to restock her B&H supplies. On our way out to the sea, we decided to check out several sites along the mudflats. When we went out to the shore in the fibreglass boat, the tide was still high. I supposed we got carried away looking for otter signs and scats that by the time we realized it, the tide was out and the fibreglass boat was a couple hundred meters from the shore. Either we wait for the tide to come in (6 hours) or wade across the mud flats. Finally we decided to take the second option. So there I was, with two English ladies trying to cross the mudflats to our boat. Both are heavy and kept on sinking into the mud. We barely moved as we spent most of the time trying to free ourselves from the soft mud. The two ladies kept dragging me down with them every time they tried to move. Finally, I asked the two ladies to lie on their back and do a backstroke on the soft mud. So there we were, the three of us doing backstroke on the mud, moving slowly towards the awaiting boat. And the sun was not in a cooperative mood, shining its rays directly on the three of us. I managed to see several fishermen on their fishing boats grinning when they saw us swimming on the mud, facing the sun and inching our way towards the boat. "What kind of idiots would do such thing under the hot sun!" that's what they said I thought. I told the two ladies that the mud would be excellent for their skins and they didn't have to go to a health center for the treatment. My words made them cheerful I think as none of them grumbled. Personally, I like the smell of mud especially the unpolluted ones. They have a conspicuous smell that reminds me of my early childhood days. I think I can easily differentiate a clean mud from a polluted mud just by smelling them. By the way, you can also distinguished the otter species from the smell of their faeces. Therefore, it is not surprising to see otter researchers picking up otter fresh faeces and smelling them. It happened during my workshop in Korea. One of the participants found fresh otter scats and the whole group scrambled to get a piece of the fresh scat to smell it. If you are planning to study otters, then you should familiarize yourself with the smell of otter faeces. It's not that bad.

Anyway, by the time we get to the boat we were covered in dry mud. So we spent the afternoon peeling off the dried mud from our skin. Nevertheless, it was a good experience for the two English ladies. Elizabeth Joy, by the way, operates a small travel agency in London. She normally brings a small group of tourist in her van to Europe. She breeds small-clawed otter in her free time. After ten days, there were no signs of the hairy-nosed otters. However, I found that the smooth-coated otters in Pantai Remis are used to the fishermen schedule. They knew when the fishing boats would be back everyday and would wait by the river bank for fishes thrown out by the fishermen. Otters are intelligent animals apart from being opportunistic. We ended our trip at the harbour in Penang. I went back to KL the next day while Elizabeth and her friends continued their vacation in Penang. She visited Pantai Kerchut but could not find any signs of the elusive hairy-nosed otter. Wonder what Elizabeth Joy is doing right now......