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.
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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.