Mayumi

Panay: paradise in north-west England?

~ Rachel L Shaw ~ 2 Comments

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Somewhat colder than the original Panay in the Philippines; this is the Panay at Chester Zoo in the north-west of the England.

I had wanted to visit since I heard about their ‘Islands’ exhibit inspired by islands South-East Asia including Panay. Finally, I had the chance to explore.

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Visiting the zoo is like exploring; it feels like there is an element of luck in whether you will see the animals or not. Luckily I spotted what I had come to see and lots more. Top of my list was the Visayan warty pig – one of the rarest pigs on the planet and my very own picture book heroine Mayumi.

dscf8865This was my first face-to-face encounter with a Visayan warty pig: she looked happy chewing on leaves and was totally oblivious of me and everyone else (which is exactly how it should be).

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It’s not just the human visitors that get to explore, the animals appeared to have space to explore too.

There are just a few hundred Visayan warty pigs thought to be surviving in the wild; living in fragments of forest on the islands of Panay and Negros. Without intervention it is likely that they would disappear entirely. The conservation work of zoos like Chester Zoo, and the support they give to conservation initiatives in the Philippines, is vitally important.

dscf8878Visayan warty pig – now found only on the islands of Panay and Negros, this critically endangered wildlife pig is perhaps the rarest pigs in the world. Some estimate at there being just 200 individuals left living in the wild

dscf8898Philippine or Visayan spotted deer – endemic to the islands of the central Philippines but now thought to be found only on Panay and Negros

dscf8929Mindanao bleeding heart-dove one of the bleeding-heart doves that are endemic to the Philippines

I also saw but didn’t  photograph: Philippine mouse-deer, Visayan tarictic hornbills, Mindanao hornbill, Palawan peacock pheasant and Northern Luzon cloud rat. The cloud rat proved to be the hardest to see. Being nocturnal, it’s enclosure is darkened and the animals still aren’t very active during the day. I stood watching for ages until I was rewarded with a brief glimpse before it retreated back into its nesting box.

The Philippine species weren’t all in the islands area of the zoo, I had to seek them out and I know I missed some. But there is some much to see. My other highlights were young orangutans playing on a rope swing and rolling down a hill (it looked like loads of fun), the painted dogs, aardvarks fast asleep and dreaming, an aye-aye and the amazing fruit bat cave.

Oh and I should have mentioned I saw one of the Visayan warty pigs have a poo too! It made me happy because pig poo is a very important part of Mayumi’s story.

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“We have books in the Philippines”

~ Rachel L Shaw ~ 1 Comment

“…the problem is people can’t afford to buy them.” These words still echo in my head.

I was three weeks into a month-long tour of the Philippines, hosted by Rotary Clubs. Every day, I visited another Rotary-supported school or community; schools that couldn’t afford books for their libraries and children that couldn’t afford books of their own. These visits left me wanting to do something more constructive to help. 12006363_10204518779362064_5002068080558599493_n

One idea was, once back home in the UK, to ask people to donate books then ship them over to the Philippines. “But you would have to raise money to cover the cost of shipping, if you can raise money why not just use it to buy books here.” the same voice, the same Rotarian was telling me. I knew he was right, the idea wasn’t practical.

I never anticipated that six years later, one of the clubs that hosted me, the Rotary Club of West Bay, would be distributing books to schools; books that are published and printed in the Philippines, and, written by me. I have to hold one of the books in my hands to remind myself that it is real. To believe that I am an author of children’s picture books published in the Philippines; picture books about the animals that are found only in the Philippines.

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I have worked in wildlife conservation in the UK all my adult life but the wildlife in the Philippines is something else. Whether it’s wide-eyed tarsiers or wide-mouthed whale sharks, shimmering fireflies or vibrant sunbirds; glimpsing just a little of this wildlife sparked my imagination. It began with my daydream of a parrot dreaming of sailing the seas on a pirate ship. Little does he know, as he sets off on his travelling adventure, that he will discover his true home. Along the way Danao the parrot meets some of the unique animals of the Philippines.

The word unique is often over-used but with thousands of animals that are found nowhere else in the world; the Philippines is unique. These animals, and the children I met visiting the schools, are my inspiration. I never intended to write stories but the animals became characters in my mind and I wrote down their adventures. I never intended the stories to be published but my enthusiastic Filipino friends encouraged me and the lovely people at The Bookmark, Inc. liked the stories and agreed to publish them.

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My daydreams about parrots, pigs and pangolins – species that live only in the Philippines – are now in real books beautifully illustrated by Jonathan Ranola and Ingrid Tan, and, some of my own illustrations.

Perhaps, as you read this, one of the books is being read by a child in a school in Bay in Laguna. Thanks to the Rotarians of the Rotary Club of West Bay, nine elementary schools in Bay have copies of my books ‘Danao’, ‘Mayumi’ and ‘Pipisin’. The elementary schools are: Puypuy, Tranca, Masaya, Sta Cruz, Bitin, Paciano Rizal, Putho Tuntungin, Maahas and Sto Domingo.

The books were purchased with funds from selling the books in the UK to family friends, with donations from the Rotary Club of Lindum, Lincoln (who are also donating books to schools in Lincoln) and with donations from my parents and myself.

Thank you everyone for helping children learn more about the endemic wildlife of the Philippines! And thank to the Philippines, the people and the wildlife, for being my inspiration!

Pigs that plant trees and make nursery pools for frogs

~ Rachel L Shaw ~ Leave a comment

20150411_154757-1Anyone interested in wild animals will know how important it is to look out for poo! And not just so you don’t step in it.

The presence of poo tells you which animals have been there and, luckily, many animal poos are very distinctive so it’s possible to identify the animal too.

Mayumi’s story also illustrates how important poo and pigs are in the forest ecosystem. Animals like pigs help grow new trees by eating fruits; the seeds pass through them and are deposited away from the parent tree where they can grow into new trees.

But animals roles within in ecosystems can be even more unexpected. A report from the BBC tells of peccaries (wild pigs of central and south America) creating pools that are used by poison dart frogs to raise their young tadpoles:

“Typically, female poison dart (dendrobatid) frogs lay eggs on land. Once the tadpoles hatch, male frogs, their fathers, then carry them to small nursery pools.
But these pools may be short-lived, and the frogs are too tiny to dig their own.
Enter the peccary, a species of wild pig common in Central and South America.
Peccaries like to fling turf, specifically by digging out wallows – their own individual mud spas.
As they do so, they can radically transform the rainforest floor, creating pools of water that are just the right size for prospective frog parents.”

For the full report see: Pigs help frogs have babies