Sukau - Sabah's Primate Paradise

Most times, travelers to the Kinabatangan and Sukau make the effort to visit because it simply is the only place in Sabah or even Borneo for that matter, that the wildlife is so accessible. The Sukau / lower kinabatangan area is a zoo safari and night safari all rolled into one.

The kinabatangan wildlife sanctuary is only 26,103 hectares in size and within this tiny area (hemmed in by palm oil plantations from all sides), is a great variety of animals and flora, some endemic to Borneo and some endemic to the area itself. The diversity of this area is unimaginable.

There are a recorded 1000 plant species, 250 bird species, 90 fish species and reptile and 50 mammal species cramped into the area. And sometimes during the rainy season between December and February, the river bursts its banks and floods over the floodplain inundating a vast area.

The animals suffer a great deal from this as the higher grounds where they used to retreat to, are now palm oil plantations and they are left with little land to survive and even less to feed on during these months of hardship. It’s been known that animals starve to death during these times.

For the drier periods, visitors have a higher chance of animal sightings and animals like the pygmy borneon elephants, the orang utan , proboscis monkeys, silver leaf monkeys or languors, macaques, civet cats, snakes, estuarine crocodiles, otters, wild boars, bird life such as the oriental darters or snake heads they are called, herons, Wallace's Hawk-Eagle, Jerdon's Baza, Violet Cuckoo, Blue-eared Kingfisher, Grey-headed Fish-Eagle, horn bills and can be ‘found’, if your nature guide and boatman is experienced.

There may be a lot more than meets the eye.There are generally 2 ways to go about getting to Sukau area, one is by boat all the way which may take 2hours meandering up the languid river or the other is to take a 1 hour van or car ride on rough palm oil plantation roads to the jetty and then a 10 – 15min boat ride to the resort. It is however advisable that if you are pregnant or if you have a bad back, not to travel on the plantation road.

The road condition is atrocious due to the rain and heavy vehicle use and 45km at 20km/hr of this travel will definitely be a painful affair if you are not accustomed to it. Normally, just to make the trip a little easier, many take the tours out and stay a day or two at resorts, home stays and hostels along the kinabatangan river. The itinerary is very similar from one tour agent to the other.