Loagan Bunut National Park, Painted Cave Trail Closed Due To Dry Spell

KUCHING (Sarawak, Malaysia), June 30 (Bernama) -- The Loagan Bunut National Park in Miri, which has Sarawak’s largest natural lake, is temporarily closed with immediate effect for visitors due to water shortage caused by the current dry season. The Painted Cave Trail in the Niah National Park, near Miri, in northern Sarawak, one of the two Malaysian states on the island of Borneo, also remains closed due to maintenance work on the plank-walk system while its main gate at Gan Kira is currently inaccessible. "The Sarawak Forestry Corporation (SFC) will update when they are ready for reopening and any inconvenience caused is deeply regretted," SFC said in a statement, here, Friday. At one of the most unusual aquatic ecosystems in Malaysia, the shallow lake normally covers an area of approximately 65 hectares but when the water level in the adjacent Tinjar River is low, it drains completely, leaving behind a huge expanse of dried and cracked mud. It is said that this normally occurs two to four times a year, in February and in late May or early June/July. The park is home to a considerable variety of birds and during the dry spells in February and May-June, darters, egrets, herons, bitterns, storks and broadbills arrive in huge numbers to feed on the trapped fish while eagles, swallows, malkohas, stork-billed kingfishers, magpies, robins, doves, bulbuls, racket-tailed drongos, pied hornbills and kites can be seen all year round. Mammals found in the park include barking deer, bearded pigs, sambar deer, long-tailed macaques, black banded langurs, lesser mousedeer, small-toothed palm civets, giant squirrels, provost squirrels and Bornean gibbons. Reptiles and amphibians include many species of frogs and small lizards, dog-headed water snakes, a variety of tree snakes, and the occasional estuarine crocodile. There are also unconfirmed reports of false gavial crocodiles found in the lake. The Painted Cave, on the other hand, is the site of the famous Niah Cave paintings and the place where the "death ships," whose contents have since been transferred to the Sarawak Museum, were found. However, the cave paintings and some of the empty death ships can still be viewed on the wall behind the fenced-off burial site, which offers a clear insight into the development of the traditional religions of Borneo. -- BERNAMA