THE tears came suddenly. "What did you do to me?" she asks reproachfully before reaching out for a tissue.
It's an unexpected moment. Up to this point, Mariani Ramli, or better known by her moniker "Bam Arrogancia", had been guarded, almost reticent with her answers.
In faltering English, she answers carefully, looking slightly uncomfortable in a setting that's become foreign to her over the years.
City life doesn't agree with her anymore, she admits. "The traffic jam, the people…" she murmurs, shrugging her shoulders. The conservationist and gibbon expert is more at home at her sanctuary in Pahang, which is also home to 16 gibbons.
Why do you love gibbons so much? I ask bluntly. Bam smiles slightly. She doesn't answer for a while as she looks thoughtful, gathering her thoughts. "I don't know," she replies simply. The reclusive life suits her, she acknowledges with a smile.
The 33-year-old runs a sanctuary at an undisclosed location within the Pahang state, to rehabilitate gibbons rescued from trafficking.
Her approach is unorthodox; preferring to immerse herself in their habitat and lives in order to experience these creatures' complex society and coming to understand them not only as a species, but also as individuals with emotions and long-term bonds.
Her attachment to gibbons is obvious, but she makes it clear that the gibbons under her care are not pets, but creatures that belong in the wild. And she plans to return them to it.
"Someday, I'd like to open my window and hear them sing in the wild again," she says wistfully, adding: "That keeps me going even when things get tough."
Gibbons are renowned amongst non-human primates for their loud and impressive songs that transmit over long distances and are commonly used in their daily routine when mating pairs "duet" every morning.
For Bam's rescued gibbons, they've lost their "song". "The trauma they've been through…" she murmurs, shaking her head.
By trauma, she means that trafficking gibbons involves a trade that sees gibbons perish at every state, from poaching to transporting a "sale".
"Poachers only aim for the juveniles because they're easy to tame and make into pets," she laments.
Gibbons suffer because each member of its family would die protecting each other, she explains. "When poachers aim for the juvenile, its father would be the first to get killed, then its siblings and lastly the mum."
For every juvenile that's targeted, other family members will be killed off first. The young gibbon clinging on to its mother may also not survive the fall to the ground tens of metres below. Studies estimate that only one in three survive the impact.
To avoid authorities, poachers move the gibbons like cargo — in cramped boxes surreptitiously tucked within the cargo holds of buses for long hours.
The grim reality is that only one out of 20 are estimated to make it to the buyer, while approximately 240 other gibbons will die along the way.
The odds are also stacked against the surviving pet gibbons. Bam shares: "The buyers would have no idea of how to care for them, and these young gibbons under their care will most often die."
FIRST LOVE
She knows, from first-hand experience, that taking care of the wild animal is a complicated affair. Bringing up Ellek — the first gibbon Bam ever cared for — unlocks a torrent of grief.
Her reticence fades away as she wipes her teary eyes. "I failed him," she admits with a catch in her voice.
She was a forest ranger attached to the Wildlife Department, and working on a project with Copenhagen Zoo when she first came across the rescued gibbon at the rescue centre. Ellek was rescued from a village in Kelantan.
"We really don't know how the villagers chanced upon Ellek," she tells me, shrugging her shoulders.
She met Ellek during her trip to the rescue centre at Sungai Tinggi while doing a project on flat-headed cats for the Copenhagen Zoo.
"He caught my eye," she recalls, smiling. "Every time I visited, I found myself playing with Ellek. Somehow we connected."
After a month of getting to know the gibbon, she'd bring him out of his small cage to play out in the open. The visits soon grew few and far between as Bam got busy with her studies and work. While she was away, her friend told her that Ellek was pining for her company.
"He'd cry for me and wait," she recalls. "By then, I had grown really attached to the juvenile gibbon." She volunteered to care for Ellek and with permission, she took him back home.
The wild animal and Bam soon became inseparable. "I'd take him everywhere," she recalls wistfully. Her home, she realised, was too small for this animal.
"He needed wide, open spaces so I'd take him to parks whenever I could so he could play."
She tried to teach him everything he needed to know about how to survive in the wild.
Ellek became her motivation to complete her degree in wildlife biology.
"I tak pandai sangat (I'm not really clever). I'm not an academician," she confesses. "Back in school, I barely passed my science subjects. But somehow Ellek made me push through my studies because I wanted to learn how to help him survive."
Each time he exhibited a strange behaviour, Bam would take to her books to find out why.
"He filled up my time completely," she says. Between work and juggling her studies, the rest of her time was spent with Ellek out in the forest.
"I found myself sacrificing my time and effort wanting to make him happy," she shares, wiping her eyes.
"I promised Ellek that I would help him. My intention was to release him back into the jungle where he would finally be free."
But it was not to be. She had just one year with the gibbon. He eventually contracted a bacterial infection that proved to be fatal.
On the day that Ellek the gibbon passed away, he laid his face down on Bam's chest and exhaled his last breath.
"I gave him CPR but it was useless. I lost him that day and I felt terrible," she recalls, trying to fight back her tears. "I lost my best friend."
She admits that despite her best efforts, her lack of knowledge inadvertently resulted in his death. "I wanted to keep him happy. But I didn't know enough to keep him alive," she says, eyes glistening again.
LEARNING TO CARE AGAIN
Her grief ran deep. She was so traumatised by Ellek's death that she couldn't bring herself to return home for months.
"Everything there reminded me of him," she says softly. "I didn't want to take care of another animal again. I felt I wasn't qualified to do it."
What was it about Ellek that made her so attached to this wildlife? Bam pauses before confessing: "To be honest, I'm a bad-tempered person. My parents would definitely vouch for that! I even became a silat practitioner to help me channel my anger and turn it into a strength."
She pauses to wipe her eyes again before continuing: "But Ellek changed me completely. For the first time, he made me care for something other than myself. He taught me how to love unconditionally. That was somewhat of an emotional breakthrough for me."
Her resolve to not get emotionally involved with another animal faltered when she was asked to care for another gibbon.
"I got a call from a friend to look into another rescued gibbon," she tells me, shaking her head. She didn't want to get involved with caring for another gibbon but her friend pleaded with her to help. At the very least, she could offer some advice.
"The moment I got there and clapped eyes on Daru, I cried and offered to care for him," she says dryly. She sighs and continues: "I really don't understand why people would treat these animals badly."
They arrived at the owner's place and found Daru living in terrible conditions. The malnourished gibbon was showing signs of severe stress and anxiety by rocking his body violently, biting his own hands and pulling out his hair.
The animal had been abused by the owner's son who kept poking at him with a stick; his small enclosure meanwhile, was filthy.
"My heart just broke seeing him in that condition," she recalls, tearing up again.
Despite dealing with the heavy guilt that came with Ellek's death and wrestling with the doubt that she had the expertise to care for the animal, Bam quickly realised that if she didn't do anything for Daru, nobody else would. "So I took him back home to KL," she says simply.
Daru had a deep mistrust and hate for humans after being abused for more than a year. It took months for Bam to gain his trust, or to even touch him.
"I got bitten on my eye during one of my attempts," she tells me bluntly. "He didn't have appetite to eat and simply just wanted to die."
It took years for Daru to want to live again.
One of her first challenges was to get Daru to eat normally.
"I treated Daru like a child and used psychology to get him to eat again."
By spending time with the traumatised gibbon, Bam learnt to speak his "language" — mimicking gibbon sounds to show him that the food was delicious. Mealtimes became a game. She'd pretend to eat in front of him and then "refuse" to share food. Eventually, Daru would mimic her actions and began to eat regularly.
GROWING BROOD
Soon another gibbon — thanks to people who began to know of Bam's reputation with gibbons — was added.
"I had another rescued gibbon, Daly, join us and I realised that I needed to learn more about these creatures to help them," she says.
Entrusting her gibbons with a close friend, Bam packed her bags and volunteered at the Gibbon Rehabilitation Centre in Phuket, Thailand to learn the proper techniques to help these two gibbons under her care.
As she approached the project site in Thailand, the sounds of gibbons singing reverberated through the air. She closed her eyes and vowed that she'd have them singing back in Malaysia as well.
"I'll never forget their singing," she tells me wistfully. The project in Thailand had started since 1992 and many gibbons have been released to the wild since then, after proper rehabilitation. She wanted to give the gibbons back home a similar chance and hope for survival.
She returned after a month, and then travelled to Cambodia to another rehabilitation centre to pursue her knowledge on caring for these creatures.
"I needed to learn as much as I can," she explains, adding bluntly: "I was still with the Wildlife Department but because I was under secondment with Copenhagen Zoo, my time was flexible. However, all these training I undertook came out of my own pocket. In fact, my gaji (salary) went towards caring for these gibbons!"
Upon returning, she realised she needed a bigger space urgently. Abandoning her city life behind. Bam sold most of her possessions, including her beloved superbike to rent a 0.8-acre rubber plantation that had lain abandoned for 10 years.
The resilient ranger built her own enclosures ("to save money!") and was willing to live in seclusion for the sake of her gibbons.
"Our common 'house guests' were the rat snakes and the spitting cobras!" she recalls, laughing at my abject horror.
"I would have done anything for them," she adds simply. "I've lost a lot of friendships because of my commitment to these creatures. I've been accused of loving these animals more than people."
Why do you care so much for these creatures? I ask. Bam grows quiet.
"I see Ellek in each one of them," she replies, wiping her eyes again.
"Ala… nangis lagi. Apa ni? (Crying again. What is this?)" she quips, her voice catching, before continuing: "I always felt like I let Ellek down. I'm going to fulfil the promise I made to him with these gibbons."
GIBBON CHAMPION
It's been quite a journey for the Sabahan who left her home in Kota Belud, Sabah because she "…wanted to get away from her family and live independently."
Her taxi-driver father was against her moving so far away but her stubborn streak won in the end.
A precocious child growing up, Bam's nickname was a result of her family calling her "Cheeky Bam" when she was young. The name stuck ever since, she tells me with a laugh. "Arrogancia" she adds, is taken from her mother's surname.
"Conservation was never a path I chose," she confesses, adding that while she enjoyed her career as a ranger with the Wildlife Department, it wasn't her first choice as a career.
"I wanted to work with Ministry of Youth & Sports. That was my first choice. But somehow, I was offered a job with the Wildlife Department."
It was that path that led to Ellek, and eventually turned Bam into a champion for the little-known apes.
"If I didn't do anything, then nobody would," she remarks, shrugging her shoulders. "Somebody had to champion these animals, help them and give them a chance to live again out in the wild where they belong."
Bam has since joined forces with conservation activist Puan Sri Shariffa Sabrina Syed Akil, the president of The Association for the Protection of the Natural Heritage of Malaysia (better known as PEKA) and set up a rehabilitation centre in Pahang where she is currently caring for 14 gibbons.
She follows strictly to the International Union Conservation of Conservation for Nature (IUCN) Best Practice Guidelines for the Rehabilitation and Translocation of Gibbons.
In 2018, her centre was certified after being audited by IUCN auditors. Funding the centre, she adds, comes from public donations.
It's a long journey towards their freedom, explains Bam. Each gibbon requires at least five to 10 years of rehabilitation, which includes Bam trying to pair them with a mate and getting them to breed, before releasing them into a safe and protected forest.
Among the criteria set by the IUCN before a gibbon is deemed to be ready for the wild include finding a mate, successfully raising two offsprings and most importantly, to be singing again.
Bam also founded the Gibbon Conservation Society in 2016.
"Rehabilitation itself is never enough. We need to do more to get people involved in helping with protecting these animals," she asserts, adding that wildlife rehabilitation and conservation are two sides of the same coin.
With wildlife rehabilitation, every animal/individual is important and receives care but conservation efforts allow habitats to exist for the release of animals.
Bam resolves to go on for as long as she can.
She shares: "When I'm feeling especially discouraged, I imagine the day my gibbons are all released. Throwing open the door, I dream of hearing them sing in the wild."
After all, it's what she's dreamed for Ellek and her other brood of gibbons who have captured her heart and imagination.
If you would like to help Bam's rehabilitation work with gibbons, you can donate to: Maybank. Gibbon Conservation Society. Account Number: 562339408187 (Maybank).