MANADO – Beritamanado – Mungkin bagi kita yang berdomisili di Sulawesi Utara pernah atau mengetahui tentang Maleo atau nama latinnya Macrocephalon Maleo.
Maloe merupakan burung yang sangat istimewa. Dengan rupa mirip dengan ayam, memiliki jengger dan bulu yang indah serta telur yang ukurannya lima kali telur ayam, woow .. Lebih istimewa lagi, Maleo bila bertelur hanya disimpan dalam tanah dan ditinggalkan hingga menetas sendiri.
Maleo termasuk dalam keluarga Megapode, artinya burung dengan kaki besar, namun yang unik, kaki Maleo justru paling kecil dalam keluarga Megapode. Maleo merupakan burung endemik Sulawesi, artinya tidak akan ditemui diluar pulau Sulawesi. Saat ini populasinya banyak berkurang karena lahan bertelur Maleo sedikit berkurang.
Karena keistimewaan burung Maleo ini sehingga menarik perhatian Radio New Zealand International untuk melakukan wawancara dengan Dr. Ir. Johny S. Tasirin, MScF, Ketua Program Studi Kehutanan Universitas Sam Ratulangi.
Menariknya dalam wawancara awal, pewawancara mengatakan bila burung Maleo mungkin lebih berarti dibandingkan dengan Kiwi, burung lambang negara New Zealand. Berikut transkrip yang ditulis berdasarkan rekaman yang diterbitkan oleh Radio New Zealand:
Radio New Zealand International
Friday 28 August 2009.
Night with Bryan Crump.
20:35 Bird Beach.
http://www.radionz.co.nz/national/programmes/nights/20090828
Bryan: Our interview this evening about the people who have bought a beach in Indonesia to help save a bird. The beach is in the island of sulawesi. The bird is called the maleo which sounds like, goodness the discription I’ve read, it might have more wear and wonderful then our national emblem the kiwi. Joining us to talk about the bird from Indonesia, Johny Tasirin, a profesor of Ecology and Conservation at Sam Ratulangi University in Indonesia.
Bryan: Welcome tonight, John.
John: Hi, Good evening
Bryan: I want if you could just describe the bird, first, the maleo bird. How is it like? How big is it?
John: The maleo is about the sze of chicken. It is a little bit taller because it has longer legs. It is a bit taller then the ordinary chciken. So, that size.
Bryan: Where does it live. Where is their habitat?
John: Their habitat is actually the tropical forests. But the unique about this bird is they try to find place that is suitable to hatch [their eggs]. And, it is usually around the beach or soil that are heated by geothermal.
Bryan: Soil heated by hotsprings
John: Hotsprings? Yes.
Bryan: How big is it the eggs in length?
John: The egg is about five times bigger then the ordinary eggs, the chicken eggs. So about that size
Bryan: Why is that, I was reading, when the eggs hatched, they are already independent, they are ready to fly
John: That is right (that they are independent after hatching) because once they, the eggs are laid by the female, the bird just leave it [alone] by itself. So they are hatched by the earth, the heat from the earth. When they hatch, they come out, they are already about 60 days left by the parents. The parents never came back to look after the chicks. So they (the chciks) have to be independent. So, they have to be able to fly. They have to be able to find food by themselves just after they hatch.
Bryan: And the eggs need to be in sands that are warm either heated geothermally or heated by the sun
John: That’s right
Bryan: For the chicks to develop inside the eggs
John: They are laid about 35 cm bellow ground and they are suited there. So the chicks have to be able to come out from the sands. So they have to climb up, they have to dig up slowly, and they come out, they emerge from the earth. Their feathers are fully developed. They can fly immediately
Bryan: Why are they endangered?
John: Well, traditionally, people in the villages, used them for source of protein. They are, the eggs, are big enough to feed a family, you know. So just one egg would be able to feed one family, for breakfast, for example, or even for dinner. So they (the egs) are highly demanded by the local people. As the population (of the people) grow the demand’s growing and the (egg) supply would not be able to meet the demand. In addition, the habitat also is being converted to different kinds of puposes for agriculture, for logging companies, illegal logging, and so on. So they are endangered because of those.
Bryan: What has been happening to the population of maleo birds over the past ten years.
John: For the past ten years they are declining very rapidly. And, today is even worrysome. Because almost all the nesting ground have been abandoned by the birds. More than 70% of the nesting ground have been abandoned because of the disturbance by hman activity or other activity like collecting the eggs and so on. So the decline is so tremendeously judging by the number of birds visiting the nesting ground. We do not have the method of calculating the maleo population. We just use the indication, the indicators, just used the birds, the adults.
Bryan: If you’re looking for a habitat for the maleo bird, do you need a beach that are not visited by many people but also for beach with forest behind it.
John: Actually it is not that picky. The bird, they keep coming back to the beach where it is already disturbed by human activity. They keep coming back to the same spot. I [assume], my theory is, that they always come back to the place where the temperature is suitable for the hatching so they (the bird) don’t have a choice. So the move to save beach that are suitable for nesting ground is very crucial for saving this bird. Even just one spot if we keep them developed safely, I think, it would be very good move
Bryan: And that’s what you decided to do. You decided to buy a beach that ois a good habitat for the maleo bird
John: Yeah, that is exactly like that. Actually, we are also managing three different sites inland. Same thing, you know, even though people keep coming back, collecting the eggs, in the past, the bird’s still coming to that spot. So, if you don’t do any protection to that land definitely the population will be vanished in a very short time. So we are managing the three spots and up to the moment we have been recording more than 5000 chicks, you know, released from that spots
Bryan: How much the cost to buy a beach?
John: By Indonesian law actually we can not buy a beach. What we can buy actually is the land next to the beach. The beach is a public property by the law, well, though some people would not [be willing to] abide by the law. When you buy the land next to the beach, you kind of protectng the beach from people that are coming to steal the eggs, or people to disturb the site. So, if we managing the coconut plantation next to the beach and the same time we are protecting the birds. Managing the coconut is actualy by considering the behavior of the birds not very difficult to do. Because we can… We already know now the biological rythm of the bird, when they are very active or not very active so then the management of the plantation will be adjusted accordingly. So the more we have actually any place more in that complex, so we can be more, we can ensure the continuation of this population at least in that [particular] area.
Bryan: In other words, John, you can grow coconuts and you can have the birds in the same time.
John: That’s right. Judging from the past, actually that coconuts have been there for sometime, so people was working for he coconuts, actually collecting the birds, I mean the eggs, and in the past in the area we have so many birds there, even the local people can tell that long time ago they can see flock of birds, a lot of them there on the beach. But now it is getting rarer and rarer. But then there is a good number of birds keep coming back to the beach even though people were still collecting the eggs
Bryan: Which brings me to the probably the most important question and challenge for you guys and that is how do you stop the locals given that the eggs are tasty and nice load, I imagine if you know what you are doing they are not easy nor difficult to fire. How do you stop people from harvesting them.
John: Well, We actually started with the people first. We visited the area, and we tell them, we educated the people therugh an awareness campaign program in the area. We’re telling them that this bird are protected, and you know that the eggs are now not commercially available now. They are very rare and not very often found. So we can introduce to them that OK this bird is very special for the ecosystem of Sulawesi, so if we protect them, the native area is protected, so we can still see the birds and the bird still can be part of the ecosystem, the wider ecosystem that will sustain them (the people). So then, the local people, they are moved , “OK. We want to do that!”. So, after we have the commitment from the local people, and then the stealers, the ones that were collecting the eggs, they are expert, if you like, we hired them to work with that. To hire means they work with us, so, if you know what I mean, with the coconut. They are paid by managing the coconuts and also looking after the bird. He knows exactly where to find the eggs, so he knows when to record them, where he found the eggs when they (the eggs) are hatched, he just monitored them. So this is the act of the local people also program. So there is an approach to the local people. Otherwise, it is going to be very difficult.
Bryan: Yes because it would be hard to persuading people to give up of a food source. It must have been dificult. You have to offer something in return.
John: Ah.OK. Because now the population is decreasing, we can tell them, we keep telling them that in the past they can easily, they can find the eggs, they could find the birds. Now you are lucky if you have one egg per week, or some thing. So the population is very… is going down. By protecting it, at least after a year we are going to have 48 chicks released to the jungle every month for the eggs, for the chicks hatched and naturally just fly to the forests. I am enthusistic that we can bring the population back to the original rate. I don’t know after that, maybe we are going to allow people in one week to collect the eggs, or some thing, we will see t later. For the time being we are just protecting the beach.
Bryan: Have you seen a maleo bird and allowed chick hatched and come out the ground?
John: Yeah. Yes. For the chickin in here we have an average of about, it is hard to find the exact figure, but I think the maximum we have about 28 in a month and I think in average we may have upto 14 chicks in a month.
Bryan: It must be remarkable sight, john, seing a chick come out the ground having just hatched from the egg then fly away.
John: O, yeah. I amtelling you, it is very rewarding, you know, you see the chicks coming out the ground. It just looking around and just fly. That is really, really satisfying. I have seen that.
Bryan: How long do you think to work out with the population growing strongly and then maybe at some period in the future allow the villagers to have the eggs for a brief time.
John: That is a very good question. Because we… I do not make that kind of prediction. I am hoping that to happen. Once we manage the coconuts sustainably, we hope to very, very long time to hire somebody managing the coconuts suitable for protecting the bird, and also to get also money for the people from selling the coconuts. To run that. So, once we have the minimum area, that can support the company, this plantation to suport the maleo protection, then that would run forever. Now, after that then we are going to think the viable population size that will be good enough to allow people to collect eggs in a certain time of the year, for example, during the independence day or in the holiday seasons. Some thing like that. I don’t know yet, I am not going to promise people like that because it is going to be difficult. We don’t know exactly what the viable population is….
Bryan: Oh we lost him. But at least we got the last question now, just about. That was John Tasirin a profesor in ecology iand conservation from Sam Ratulangi University in Indonesia talking about buying the beach to save the endangered and very vascinating maleo bird.
Liputan Radio New Zealand International:
http://www.radionz.co.nz/national/programmes/nights/20090828
(hanny sumakul)
