SANDAKAN, Malaysia -- Early in April, news filtered out from Riau, on the Indonesian island of Sumatra, that a group of hunters had captured four sun bears, three of which they killed and cooked to make rendang, a popular curry dish in Indonesia and Malaysia.
The report shocked Southeast Asian conservationists, who see the fight to save the sun bear as one of the region's top animal protection priorities. But a conservation program based in Sandakan, in Sabah, one of two Malaysian states on the island of Borneo, is making notable progress toward saving the world's smallest bear.
