KOTA KINABALU: Bird watching and aves recording has become a new part of the educational programme for Universiti Malaysia Sabah (UMS).
A dedicated annual bird watch event dubbed October BIG Day, which is held on the second weekend of every October, is set to spark the interest of bird watching and forest rehabilitation among UMS students.
This programme organised by UMS with the Sabah Bird Watchers Association (SBWA) is set to be an annual event for the university, said UMS through a statement issued by its Borneo Travel Research Centre, Faculty of Business, Economics and Accountancy.
“The idea to have this programme is a continuation of the Winged Wonders Programme organised by Shangri-La Rasa Ria with the collaboration of BTRC and SBWA last month,” the statement read.
It said that October BIG Day would not only encourage more students to learn more about birds but also be used as another form of tourism product, seeing how the UMS campus is often used as a bird migration point, it added.
Such activities also promote forest health and conservation, the statement read.
SBWA president Ron Pudin said this October BIG Day programme held worldwide is an opportunity for bird watchers to record the species of birds encountered via an eBird application, for a period of 24 hours.
“Today (Oct 12), UMS with SBWA, the Institute for Development Studies Sabah (IDS) and Shangri-La Rasa Ria Resort, Tuaran, had this event at the ODEC beach of UMS and around the UMS Health Ecotourism forest area and hiking trail,” he said.
He said programmes like these were important because birds contribute to forest rehabilitation initiatives whereby with the presence of birds, researchers and scientists would be able to determine the health status of a forest.
They would also have an idea of the types of biodiversity present at a forest area and allow bird watchers to get to know the types of birds, specifically those endemic to Sabah, said Pudin.
“We hope participants will have an increased awareness and interest in birds watching and recording using the apps available,” he added.
He explained that they could function as community scientists and at the same time boost interest among locals and foreigners to come to Sabah for this purpose.
More than 50 participants among students and staff of UMS together with the SBWA and IDS members took part in this event.
They used binoculars to spot the birds before putting into record the types of birds they saw.
Also present were the faculty dean Associate Prof Dr Mohd Rahimie Abd Karim and BTRC director, Associate Prof Dr Balvinder Kaur Kler.
