NEWS: Tarsier found in Manila Golf

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Tarsier found in Manila Golf
Jaymee T. Gamil
Philippine Daily Inquirer
June 22, 2013

As if finding squirrels weren’t unusual enough in highly urbanized Metro Manila, the posh Manila Golf and Country Club in Forbes Park, Makati City, on Friday yielded another out-of-place creature: a tarsier.

The tarsier, one of the smallest known primates in the world, was found by the golf club’s caddies before noon on Friday, general manager San Agustin Albina told the Inquirer in a phone interview. The saucer-eyed creature was found clinging to the low-lying branches of a tamarind tree near the caddies’ barracks, he added.

Though squirrels have become regular residents in trees within the country club, it was the first time a tarsier has been found in the premises, the club official said.

“It was my first time to see one and I didn’t even see it in Bohol (where tarsiers are usually found) but here [in Metro Manila],” an amused Albina said.

He said they had no idea how the creature got into the golf club but surmised that it could have escaped from neighboring residences where it might have been kept as a pet.

It might have climbed a tree but was chased down to the lower branches by the squirrels, Albina said. “The caddies decided to capture the tarsier before the squirrels or stray cats could hurt it,” he added.

DENR-PAWB

Albina said they immediately called the the Department of Environment and Natural Resources Protected Areas and Wildlife Bureau (DENR-PAWB) to take custody of the animal.

“It seems healthy, but we don’t know what to feed it. We [waited] for the PAWB, who could take care of it better,” Albina said of the creature that had sat quietly inside a cardboard box lined with netting before the PAWB picked it up.

PAWB official Theresa Mundita Lim promptly sent veterinarian Esteven Toledo to examine the tiny primate after Sen. Loren Legarda called her up for assistance.

“First, it will need a health check,” Lim said of the tarsier. “We’ll have to find out if it’s healthy and in good condition. And if it’s healthy, then it will be transported and possibly reintroduced to the wild.”

Lim said the PAWB would also have to determine if the tarsier was a Philippine species and investigate how it got to Forbes Park.

“There’s no way it could have gotten there on its own,” she said, adding that a tourist might have smuggled out the creature and decided to keep it as a pet, and that it might have escaped.

Tarsiers can leap from tree to tree but are not known to travel long distances, Lim said.

Escaped

The DENR-PAWB veterinarian, who came early evening Friday to pick up the tarsier, echoed Lim’s view, saying there was no known tarsier population in Metro Manila. “We believe someone living in Forbes Park [could] have been keeping it and that it escaped,” Toledo said.

But the DENR also noted that a baby tarsier was spotted at singer Jose Mari Chan’s house in Forbes Park a month ago, but that it had died by the time the agency came to retrieve it.

Toledo said that keeping wildlife is illegal, except among registered breeders and wildlife farms. He added that keeping tarsiers as pets is highly unadvisable because “they are highly strung and sensitive.”

Because the tarsier “had already undergone enough stress,” including during transport, Toledo said the DENR-PAWB was careful not to touch it any further. It was kept in a box during transport to prevent further handling,” the veterinarian said.

Though they could not handle the creature to determine if it was male or female, Toledo said it was an adult and seemed alert.

But the vet declined to state categorically if the tarsier was healthy, saying it will be examined over the weekend. “We have to check first because it could be malnourished,” Toledo said. With a report from DJ Yap

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Tarsier in Manila Golf found dead
By DJ Yap
Philippine Daily Inquirer
Jun 27, 2013

What began as an odd, amusing tale of a tiny creature finding its way to the big city has turned out to be a sad, short-lived one.

The tarsier discovered at Manila Golf and Country Club in Makati City five days ago was found dead in its cage on Wednesday afternoon at the Ninoy Aquino Wildlife Rescue Center in Quezon City, officials said.

How the tarsier got to the golf club in Forbes Park remains a mystery.

Until its death, the little creature had appeared healthy and active, said Director Theresa Mundita Lim of the Protected Areas and Wildlife Bureau.

“Its big appetite raised our hopes that it would be able to survive,” she said, expressing deep disappointment over the fate of the tarsier, an endangered species protected by wildlife law.

Found by caddie

Endemic to the Philippines, tarsiers are nocturnal creatures that live on a diet of small lizards, frogs and insects. They have thin, rough fur, whose color ranges from gray to dark brown. Tarsiers communicate with each other using loud piercing notes.

The primate was found by a caddie on June 21 perched on the branch of a tamarind tree at the golf course located inside the posh Forbes Park.

Although shy, the tarsier had shown no sign of stress and was eating well in the small cage, where it was kept, often hidden among the leaves and branches that simulated its natural habitat. It had been fed mealworm, the recommended substitute for insects for insect-eating animals in captivity.

Lim said the tarsier was to have been flown on Thursday to Bohol, where officials intended to keep it in a semi-captive environment before its possible reintroduction to the wild.

“I am so disappointed because we really thought it was going to make it. We already arranged everything, including the flight to Bohol,” she said.

A wildlife caretaker under the supervision of the attending veterinarian, Esteven Toledo, was looking after the tarsier before it was found dead at about 1 p.m., Lim said.

She added that the animal had appeared fine when the caretaker checked in the morning.

Necropsy

The cause of death is still not known. Lim said her agency would coordinate with the Bureau of Animal Industry to perform a necropsy to find out why the tarsier died.

“We don’t know if it had any preexisting condition before we took it in. Unlike domestic animals like dogs or cats, we could not really do a thorough health check because we didn’t want to stress the anima,” Lim said.

The necropsy should tell officials if the tarsier was malnourished or suffering from any other ailment.

Lim said the tarsier’s fur had appeared scruffy and its strong appetite might indicate that it had been starving before it was discovered at Manila Golf.

“Perhaps the lesson here is we should have arranged for it to be taken to Bohol immediately after it was rescued,” Lim said.

Investigation

The discovery of the tarsier in the golf course had prompted an investigation of how it found its way there. There are no registered tarsier owners in Metro Manila.

Lim speculated that a tourist might have pocketed the animal and was keeping it as a pet before it escaped.

The tarsier was not given a name although there were plans to name it, Lim said. “Maybe it’s for the best that we didn’t give it a name or we would have grown more attached to it,” she said.

Keeping wildlife, especially an endangered species like the tarsier, is illegal, except among registered breeders and wildlife farms.

The Philippine tarsier (Tarsius syrichta) is one of the smallest known primates in the world, growing no larger than an adult person’s hand.

Its size ranges from 118 to 149 millimeters (4.6 to 5.8 inches) while its average weight is between 113 and 142 grams (about 1/10 of a kilo).

In 1986, the Philippine tarsier was listed as “endangered” by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Conservation Monitoring Center.

A check with the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species currently lists the tarsier as “near threatened.”

A number of laws have been adopted to protect and conserve the Philippine tarsier, among them the Department of Environment and Natural Resources’ Administrative Order No. 48, which included the creature as a protected species among other endangered animals.