FAUNA

Bali is home to 32 species of mammals, including a wildcat, two species each of civet (the musang, or palm civet , which resembles a mongoose), two species of monkey, sambar, barking deer, mouse deer, wild ox (banteng), and a miniature squirrel.
     In the early 1900s, a writer reported that his camp in west Bali was trampled by a herd of feral elephants, but by the 1920s it was difficult to meet anyone who'd ever seen an elephant on the island. By that time the Balinese tiger, the smallest of eight subspecies of tiger, was very rarely sighted, and the last known animal was shot in 1937. Today only five sad stuffed specimens are left behind.
     A visit to the 76,000-hectare Bali Barat National Park (BBNP), covering most of the heavily forested interior of western Bali, is obligatory for animal and bird lovers. The park is effectively protected against exploitation and development and is well-patrolled by rangers based at the park headquarters of Cekik and Labuhan Lalang. Here you can see rusa deer, wild boar, and fairly tame long-tailed macaques and leaf monkeys sitting high in the trees chewing on leaves. The 165-hectare offshore island of Menjangan has a population of around 50 barking deer.

The Wallace Line
Bali is the physical end of what was once mainland Asia. Observing that a great contrast exists between the animal life of Bali and that of the islands to the east, the great 19th-century English naturalist Sir Alfred Russel Wallace suggested that the treacherous, 24-km-wide strait separating Bali from the neighboring island of Lombok is an important divide, a biologically impassable line cleaving Asia from Australia. "In just two hours," he suggested, "you can pass from one great division of the earth to the other, differing as essentially in their animal life as Europe does from America."
     During the last ice age, Wallace theorized, the sea level around the Greater Sundas fell enough to enable animals to travel overland from the Asian mainland, fanning out through the archipelago until they reached the deep trench of the Lombok Strait and could go no farther. While the Selat Bali ("Bali Strait") separating Bali from Java has a maximum depth of 60 meters, the ocean depths between Bali and Lombok exceed 1,300 meters.
     Wallace's book, The Malay Archipelago, published in 1869 contemporary and parallel with Charles Darwin's work, advanced a theory of evolution based on Wallace's examination of the flora and fauna of the region. His imagined line dividing the Asian and Australian regions on either side of the Lombok Strait has since become known as the Wallace Line.
     The differences between Bali and Lombok are obvious. Bali is lush, equatorial, smothered in the luxuriant vegetation of tropical Asia, while Lombok is wind-blown and dry like the Australian plains. Bali, Java, and islands west are characterized by the monkeys, squirrels, rabbits, tigers, elephants, bears, sheep, oxen, horses, orangutans, and pythons found in the dense tropical forests and jungles of Asia. On the islands east of Bali begin the parrots and other peculiar bird species, marsupials like wombats and kangaroos, the platypus, and giant lizards of the Australian region. Some "leakage" occurs, i.e., monkeys are found in Sumba.
 

HANGING OUT WITH THE MONKEY 

Monkeys, considered descendents of General Hanuman in Hindu mythology, occupy a semidivine status on Bali and are allowed to proliferate around some of Bali's most sacred temples. The best places to watch monkeys (and people) are the monkey forests of Ubud and Sangeh. Feeding time brings the monkeys down out of the trees around 1000 and 1600 when they are fed potatoes. Talk to one of the feeders-some have been caring for monkeys for the past 15 years. They have given the monkeys names and know the quirks of most individuals in the troop.
     Even though signs often say Don't Feed The Monkeys, vendors sell peanuts and bananas at the gates. Gate price for peanuts is Rpl000, warung price is Rpl00. It's the same story for bananas. The secret for enjoying the monkeys without getting hurt or robbed is to sit very quietly and let them come to you.Before you arrive, put away all extra food, zip purses shut, and lock down cameras. The monkeys will search you. Take off any jewelery and paraphernalia that you don't need-they'll gladly take possession of earrings, necklaces, watches, even hearing aids. Then either hand the food to them or simply lay it in the palm of your hand. Always look out for the dominant male; he should be given food first to avoid fighting. Don't feed the subadults or you may get bitten by their mother. Never show your teeth when smiling at the animals as it's regarded as an aggressive gesture.
     If you take these precautions, you can spend long stretches with the monkeys. They'll perch on your lap, drape a warm furry arm on your shoulder while they munch, and watch everything. They don't care to be petted at all. Unwary tourists can get scratched or bitten by treating these creatures as pets, which is easy to do because they appear friendly. They are wild animals with all the dignity, free will, and unpredictability that implies. Whatever you do, don't leave a pet monkey behind as a burden to a Balinese family who of course can't say no. The mothers are killed in order to get the babies to sell. The animals are kept on a short chain out in the weather with no protection, given no water, and teased until they become mean. The creatures will eventually die, sick from the cold. Only one out of 10 survive.

DOMESTIC ANIMALS

A cousin to the wild boar, Bali's famous pigs are weighted to collapse with their loads of pork, their backbones sagging as if broken and their enormously heavy pink bellies dragging through the dust. Pigs are the property of the woman of the house and any money she earns from them belongs to her. A great Balinese delicacy not to be missed is suckling pig (be guling in Balinese, babi guling in Indonesian) roasted on a spit.
     The ducks of Bali, kept as family pets, rank among the island's most prominent citizens. Squads of them are taken from the family kampung by the herders each day to feed in the rice fields, marching in formation under flags on long poles from which they never stray. In the irrigation channels between the rows of plants these comics act like up-tailed, web-footed vacuum cleaners, loosening old roots, nosing through the mud grubbing for worms, snails, frogs, insect pests, and leftover grains of rice. At day's end, the chattering flock gathers around the duck herder's pole to be taken home again. Ducks are much better behaved and more complacent than bothersome chickens, well-suited for the communal living of the Balinese domestic compound. Duck meat, as in the strongly spiced dish bebek betutu, makes for some of the finest eating on the island.
     The Balinese goose-swan, the nearest thing on the island to a true swan, is the sacred mount of Dewi Saraswati, the goddess of learning and the arts. They make excellent watch geese. Fighting cocks can be seen preening in bamboo cages on the sides of Bali's roads. Compared to their Western cousins, these birds are wild and supernatural, able to fly up to and perch on rooftops. The flesh of pugilist rooster tastes and has the texture of lizard hide. Loops of sound seem to follow flocks of pigeons circling the sky; each is hung with small bells on its feet and bamboo whistles on its tail feathers. Turtle doves and other pet birds are hoisted in their cages high on bamboo poles to enjoy the view and provide fluting and cooing music for the villagers below.
     Cattle, hung with sweet melodic wooden bells, leap from banks with the lithe grace of an antelope. These amiable, beautiful creatures with long eyelashes, delicate features, dew eyes, manicured velvet coats, slender necks, trim bodies, slim legs, and short tails look more like fawns than cattle. Like most cows in the tropics, they give no milk. Unlike the Hindus of India the Balinese don't consider cattle as sacred; they are bred for their meat and exported to other islands. Nevertheless, cows live a privileged life on Bali, lovingly bathed in village streams, billeted in cozy hay-strewn mangers, let loose on village lawns to feed. The largest cattle markets in Bali are in Beringkit, 20 kilometers south of Mengwi, and in Bebandem (Karangasem), a scene out of medieval Bali.
     Domesticated water buffalo (kerbau) with thick curving horns are used for plowing the rice fields. A special event in Jembrana Regency is the Makepung buffalo races in which two kerbau pull a jockey in a wheeled carriage. The animals are specially bred and trained, a process that has produced a healthier strain of cattle more resistant to the diseases prevalent in other Balinese cattle. The same district has developed Magembeng, in which cows carry big wooden musical bells (gembeng) around their necks. As they walk, their slow and graceful swaying causes the instruments to sound and form haunting music. The cows take part in competitions in which posture, beauty in the head and tail, and the precision and softness of their music is fastidiously evaluated.
     Balinese cats are scrawny, unbelievably loud and raucous creatures with truncated tails and unpleasant dispositions. Scavengers like dogs, they are omnivorous and eat among other things ants and mangoes. Bali's miserable anjing (dogs) abound—mangy, flea-bitten bags of skin, bones, and open sores. There are an estimated 600,000 on the island. The mongrelized Balinese dog has a short pointed muzzle, a piggy tail, weighs about 30 pounds, births one litter per year, and is an expert at survival. Colin McPhee, in his A House in Bali, wrote of Bali's infamous dogs, "grey, starved and tottering, on walls, in doorways, the dogs infested the villages. They were so anemic they could hardly drag themselves off the road. We drove along, knocking them to one side with a thud."
     Little has changed since those words were written in 1945. In the West dogs bark too, but somehow their barking isn't as stubborn or as irritating as that of the dogs of Bali. Most dogs are ill-kept pets; the tens of thousands of strays who roam the island are not destroyed because of the Hindu/Buddhist taboo against killing living things.
     The traditional island belief is that dogs contain the souls of reincarnated thieves. They do serve a useful purpose by scaring away both corporeal intruders and the evil spirits which haunt the Balinese. They provide a free morning wakeup call. They clean up the trash, and seldom actually bite anyone. Though few are rabid, none are wo/man's best friend. Look upon them as rats, or pigeons with teeth, and you'll have no problem with them.

BIRDS

There's been a dramatic drop in the local bird population over the last 20 years. Although many of the more obvious and colorful species, particularly birds of prey, have been all but eliminated, species still number about three hundred. These include beautiful wild fowl; an iridescent blue kingfisher; the dollarbird of western Bali's open woodlands; the acrobatic ash-colored drongo; the olive-beaked sunbird, which feeds on flowers; the black-naped oriole, with its completely black abdomen; the white-breasted wood swallow with triangular wings; and the streaked weaver, which builds delicate nests in colonies in the long grass of open country.
     Specialized seabirds inhabit Bali's south coast. The white-bellied sea eagle and white-tailed tropic bird nest and breed in the stunning vertical limestone cliffs and offshore islets of the Bukit Peninsula and Nusa Penida. At low tide, a prime viewing area for waterbirds is the long, sheltered coast of mudflats and mangrove swamp from Sanur to Benoa Bay. Here you'll find large flocks of plovers, sandpipers, and other wading birds feeding on the mudflats at low tide. Along the shores of the Bay of Gilimanuk on Bali's western tip are the large brown and white brown booby, the great crested tern, and the common tern.
     Inland, around the canals and ponds, are congregations of stately Javan pond herons and white egrets. North of Ubud in Petulu, between 1600 to 1800 in the afternoon, you can see thousands of short-billed egrets, cattle egrets, and snow-white little egrets arriving to roost for the night in the palms. In the main rice-growing country of central Bali keep a lookout for grain-feeding munias, sparrows, and white-bellied swiftlets. During the breeding season these tireless little birds build intricately woven nests in the tall grass and bushes. Farther north, around the volcanic lakes of Bratan, Buyan, and Tamblingan, are trails leading into dense submontane rainforests where you can view forest birds like cuckoos, barbets, and babblers. Australian brown honeyeaters are also found in this terrain, flitting about in low bushes and feeding on flowers. Only one species of honeyeaters crossed the Wallace Line, the sole exception to the rule.
     The extremely rare Bali starling, or Rothschild's or Bali mynah (Leocopsar rothchildi), is the only vertebrate animal indigenous to Bali. The bird is snow-white, with black on its tail and the tips of its wings and a bright blue patch around its eyes. Don't confuse it with the black-winged starling, which has a yellow skin patch around its eyes. When the bird's population plummeted due to loss of habitat, a group of U.S. zoos saved the starling by shipping individuals to the Surabaya Zoo; they were then reintroduced into the island's northwest corner. The jalak Bali has been recorded along 85 kilometers of coastline from Singaraja to Gilimanuk. The best watching post is at Teluk Kelor on the north coast of the Prapat Agung Peninsula where a handful of starlings come down from the hills to roost near the beach. There's a Bali Starling Project Research Station two kilometers north of the guardpost at Sumber Klampok.

Birdwatching
The best place to see birds in the wild is Bali Barat National Park in western Bali, home to at least 160 different species. Bali Bird Park in Singapadu is a two-hectare aviary housing more than 1,000 rare and beautiful birds from both Indonesia and all over the world—breathtaking Australian cockatoos, magnificent South American macaws, Irianese birds of paradise, and the Bali starling. The many shady rest stops, waterfalls, and ponds ornamented with lotus and water lilies serve as a splendid backdrop for this striking collection. Some of the settings are spectacular, re-creating desert, savannah, and soaring, mist-shrouded rainforest (in 1996 a reptile park was opened as part of the complex). Many of the tamer species roam freely, and everywhere is birdsong.
     Another way to get close to birds is to join one of Victor Mason's "Bird Walks" in the fertile countryside of Ubud, an incredible and entertaining stroll into the natural untouched flora and fauna of Bali's heartland. Here you're bound to see 30 or so different species, including such Indonesian endemics as the Java kingfisher, the barwinged prinia, the black-winged starling, and the Java sparrow. Ask about the Bali Bird Club (Box 3400, Denpasar 80001, Bali, tel. 0361-95009) organized by Victor.

REPTILES, AMPHIBIANS, INSECTS

The island is home to the rarely spotted lethal, luminous green viper (lelipis gedong) identified by the red in its tail. Bali's other snake, the ular sawah, is brown and nonpoisonous.
     There are also crooning frogs, lucinea spiders which build their webs along paths (if they bite you, your head aches for three days), fireflies, butterflies, crickets, poisonous scorpions (rare), and huge black, harmless beetles that thud off your hotel walls trying to find a way out. Children catch dragonflies on long, glue-tipped bamboo poles, then thread them like sate on strings to take home and deep-fry in oil for a crispy, protein-rich delicacy. Cicadas are the multitudinous unseen chorus to all Balinese nights. Bats can be seen at Goa Lawah cave east of Klungkung; they also emerge all over Bali at dusk to feed.
     What do you call an Indonesian lizard with a loud voice? A gecko blaster. The lovable gecko—cicak in Indonesian—is about 15 cm long, has a scaleless alabaster body and beady eyes, screeches "tsk-tsk," and scampers upside down on any surface with the use of vibrations from its pudgy toes. The bottoms of their feet resemble the gills of fish. It's believed that if a gecko chirps while someone is talking it means that person is telling the truth. Geckos make cheap pets because you don't have to feed them—they eat each other.
     A nontoxic lizard called alu-alu, reaching one meter in length, waits on riverbanks to snatch passing ducks. To "witness man's bravery with live crocodiles and snakes" pay a vist to the Ayung Reptile Park near Sanur. Performances given twice daily (0900 and 1700), plus there's a collection of reptiles from all over the Indonesian archipelago.
     The tokay lizard, often heard but rarely seen, emits a wonderfully ear-curling, indescribable rachet windup sound followed by a series of "BO" croaks never forgotten once heard. Each time the tokay croaks, the sound gets a little softer, deeper, and slower, as his wind runs out. The Balinese believe that anyone who hears a lizard moan nine times will receive good luck. They can croak up to 30 times—at the drop of a hat gamblers will bet on how many. Up to 45 cm long, with deep orange spots, they can eat mice and baby birds. Tokays defecate black cigar-shaped droppings from the same spot on the ceiling everyday and can only be discouraged by attaching or hoisting mothballs up to the spot.

SEALIFE

Hire boats at Labuhan Lalang for snorkeling and diving in the marine reserve of Bali Barat National Park in the northwest. The wonderful sealife of the coral reefs off Menjangan Island is one of Bali's premier dive sites. A unique species of lobster is caught in these waters, as well as a wide range of colorful coral fish, including parrot fish, damsels, angels, wrasses, butterfly fish, puffer fish, groupers, and moray eels.
     To the east, about 10 kilometers before Singaraja, is the coastal resort of Lovina Beach, where dozens of motorized prahu go out to view schools of dolphins in their feeding grounds. These shallow, calm waters teem with a wide variety of small reef fish, crustaceans, sponges, and hard coral. In deeper waters are plankton-eating whale sharks. Two other popular dolphin-viewing and dive locales are Candidasa and Padangbai in Karangasem. An indispensable reference for marine study is Kal Muller's Underwater Indonesia: A Guide to the World's Greatest Diving.

ENDANGERED SPECIES

It's a common sight to see men and boys walking the back roads of Bali carrying small caliber rifles and air guns for the purpose of shooting birds for food or sport. Because it's illegal to shoot birds without a license, if you see this say "Jangan membawa senapan tanpa ijin!" ("Don't carry a gun without a license!").
     Among Indonesia's endangered wild creatures are its sea turtles. The much-publicized turtle-breeding ground off the island of Serangan in southeastern Bali is a cover-up; at least 25,000 turtles per year are caught in Indonesia's seas and slaughtered for Bali's major festivals, in which turtle meat and turtle soup are entrenched ceremonial requirements. Really big festivals require the consumption of as many as 50 of these magnificent wild creatures. This is an issue which has the international conservation community incensed. To appreciate the magnitude of the problem, visit Pegok village in the eastern suburbs of Denpasar, where you can see the sad spectacle of dozens of turtles lined up for butchering, immobilized with their front flippers tied together in front of their beaks. Before you buy turtle products or order turtle sate at one of Bali's restaurants, remember that sight. One good sign is that the number of tourist shops in south Bali selling stuffed sea turtles and turtle-shell products has dwindled considerably.