rhino sighting. So I had to study all kinds of tracks and signs to learn something about the way of life of the Sumatran rhino. I did, of course, try very hard to get at least a glimpse of one. Once I sat on a small platform up a tree for more, than three weeks, eating only cold rice and dried fish. Continually, day and night, either Pawang Husin or I kept watch on a rhino trail and a saltlick. The nights were cold and the daily rains soaked our small shelter. But we saw nothing besides birds, squirrels, and an occasional barking deer. A second attempt at a dif- ferent place produced the same discouraging results. But I did see one rhino in my, two years or so - and that was purely by chance. We had built our field camp on a rhino trail. Pawang Flusin (the magician) had told me in the morning that I would see a rhino the same day. As he had never said this before I was quite surprised and rather excited. During the day we came across fresh rhino tracks but saw nothing of the animal itself. A trifle disappointed, we were eating our evening meal when suddenly there was a noise of breaking wood. Instantly on the alert, we dropped our rice and rushed outside. There was the rhino! With its head close to the ground it dashed off through the undergrowth like a small but compact tractor. As it was getting dark fast by now, it was not possible to give chase. But, when I smoked my pipe by the fire that night I was very happy, that I had seen, albeit fleetingly at least one of these strange rhinos, whose tracks 1 had been following for such a long time.
The terrain in the central parts of the reserve is steep and high and covered with sub-montane and damp moss forest. The trees are smaller, with beards of lichen on their branches, and the ground is covered with moss. It is here that the Sumatran rhinoceros is found, in what is possibly its last stronghold. It was to study this extremely rare rhino that 1 was sent to Sumatra some two and a half years ago by the World Wildlife Fund . Little was known about the species' status and distribution and virtually nothing about its ecology. The aim of my project was to locate the remaining few populations and work out plans for their conservation. I soon learned that the rhinos had vanished from the forests close to populated areas, and I therefore had to search the hitherto unexplored central mountainous regions of the Gunung Leuser Reserve. It was there, in an area that can only be reached by a week-long walk through dense forest and difficult terrain - or by helicopter - that I found the tracks, wallows, trails, and saltlicks of this elusive animal. Direct observation is nearly impossible. To start with, a population of maybe 30 animals is scattered over an area of more than 3,000 square kilometres. And secondly, the rhinos have a flight distance much greater than the approximately 20 metres a human observer can see in the forest.
