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C/E/G-2 Dec. 09
TOKO BUKU
Reviews of English language books on Indonesia
A Year of Watching Wildlife:
A Guide to the World’s Best Animal Encounters
In the natural regions of the world something astounding happens: lizards fly like paper airplanes in the jungles of Kalimantan; a million wildebeest trek 800 km across the Serengeti; killer whales surf Argentinean beaches; 10 million puffins descend on Iceland; and the world’s biggest feeding frenzy takes place off the coast of South Africa.
Never before have there been more wildlife destinations opening up or as many people traveling in search of wildlife. In response many countries – including Indonesia – are developing new access points, accommodations and tours in areas that were previously diffi cult to reach.
Indonesia, with its 50 national parks containing vast rainforests teeming with such exotic creatures as hornbills, orangutans, gibbons, mouse deer and bearded pigs, are well represented throughout the book - from Papua’s Birds of Paradise and Kalimantan’s proboscis monkeys to Halmahera’s extraordinary birdlife and Komodo’s giant 2-meter-long monitor lizards.
On Borneo alone – described by Darwin as one great luxuriant hothouse made by nature for herself – there are are 350 types of birds, a staggering 10,000 plants and 150 reptiles and amphibians found nowhere else in the world. These include a lungless frog, a frog that fl ies, a slug that shoots love darts and snakes with fl ame-like necks.
But the secret of seeing animal life is knowing when, where and how to look. A Year of Watching Wildlife is a photographic and inspirational guide that explores where to experience the world’s best animal encounters. Suggesting the best time of year to spot particular animals, the book also enables you to design your trip around viewing wildlife – one of the most exciting reasons to travel - either as side ventures or as the whole focus of your trip.
A two-page color-coded world map in the frontmatter indicates at a glance the best months for viewing wildlife in all the main sites included in the guide. Introductory chapters on oceans, rainforests, deserts and grasslands, mountains and islands provide an outline of the varied environments covered. Half-page world maps showing all the top locations accompany these chapters.
Each encounter is described with detailed information on location, the level of difficulty (low, medium, hard), protected status (stable, well-protected, increasingly or highly threatened, critically endangered), environment (cloud forest, lagoon, lowland, etc.) and seasonal information (at end of dry season, beginning of wet season, etc.).
Coverage may also include how to avoid touristy viewing areas, the condition of a park’s infrastructure, what weather conditions you’ll most likely face, if fl ight schedules are reliable, any bureaucratic and logistical challenges, if there are parking lots, trails and guides available and where to get more information such as websites, contact numbers and park offi ce addresses.
During February in Sumatra’s Gunung Leuser National Park,
readers are advised to hide quietly near fi g trees, which 70% of the resident animals depend on for food. This results in a rush-hour traffi c jams of wildlife occurring around fruiting fi g species. This mammoth pristine park, by the way, is the only site in the world where you can encounter Southeast Asia’s Big Four – orangutans, tigers, elephants and rhinos.
To help you plan the year’s adventures, events and destinations in the book are organized chronologically week-by-week through the year. Each week leads off with a profi led destination that focuses on gathering locales where wildlife is most likely to be seen. Each of these featured destinations also includes several other animal species which are active in other sites around the world.
Obviously, animal behaviors and events don’t always fi t neatly into a weekly calendar, thus the editors suggest ideal times to plan your journey based on peak windows of opportunity to catch animals roosting, nesting, hunting, mating, calving or migrating.
Information is also provided on why the animal appears during that particular time of year. For example, the best time to visit the Bogani Nani Wartabone National Park in northern Sulawesi is at the beginning of the rainy season in April when the world’s smallest primate – the utterly charming Spectral Tarsier – gives birth to young. At the end of the rainy season prehistoric-looking hornbills fl y far and wide in search of fi g crops.
The book doesn’t neglect the wonders of the world’s oceans. Indonesia’s Raja Ampat Islands, the Holy Grail of deep sea diving, hosts the most diverse underwater marine organisms on the planet. In this newly discovered tropical ecosystem off western New Guinea divers are able to see as many as 284 species of tropical fi sh in a single dive – and at any time of the year because it’s on the equator.
One entertaining feature is the ‘Did You Know’ sections in the upper right hand corner of right-hand pages containing fascinating trivia on individual animals. Did you know that a female tarsier carries its infant in its mouth while leaping from tree to tree, that monarch butterfl ies cross oceans, that a Komodo dragon’s teeth don’t kill, that proboscis monkeys are the only primate with webbed feet?
The writing is fi rst class - lively and informative. Full color close-ups and action shots accompany coverage of parks, conservancy areas, wildlife refuges and individual species. In the backmatter, there’s a section on wildlife volunteering and a place name and subject index allowing readers to search easily by either destination or by individual animal. Lonely Planet’s new book, in the publisher’s wildlife watching series, is a chronological catalog of how to get up close to the world’s most amazing animals while driving, fl ying, camping or lodging. This wish book will take pride of place on every animal lover’s book shelf.
A Year of Watching Wildlife: A Guide to the World’s Best
Animal Encounters, Lonely Planet 2009, ISBN 1741792797, 224 pages, index, dimensions 18.5 cm X 24 cm.
Available for Rp200,000 at Periplus outlets, Gramedia Bookstores, and at Adi’s, Ary’s and Ganesha bookstores in Ubud and Ganesha@Biku in Kerobokan.
For comments and suggestions, please write:
writers@baliadvertiser.biz
Copyright © 2010
You can read all past articles of Toko Buku at
www.BaliAdvertiser.biz
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