Tangkoko Nature Reserve

A Coastal Rainforest Reserve Holding The Spectral Tarsier And The Critically Endangered Crested Black Macaque, Both Found Only On Sulawesi · Bitung, North Sulawesi

Tangkoko is a small coastal rainforest reserve on the north-eastern tip of Sulawesi, and it exists in most people's plans as the land day between dives at Lembeh. IT DESERVES BETTER. TWO ANIMALS LIVE HERE AND NOWHERE ELSE ON EARTH. THE SPECTRAL TARSIER is a primate small enough to sit in a cupped hand, with eyes each larger than its brain, which sleeps inside strangler fig roots by day and comes out at dusk in a burst that visitors wait at the tree for. THE CRESTED BLACK MACAQUE - yaki - is charcoal-black with a startling crest and a pink rump, CRITICALLY ENDANGERED, and still hunted for bushmeat in North Sulawesi, where it is eaten at celebrations. IT IS ALSO THE SPECIES FROM THE MONKEY SELFIE COPYRIGHT CASE, which is how most of the world has seen its face without ever learning what it was, or that it is disappearing, or that it is still eaten at celebrations a short drive from this forest.

Tangkoko Batuangus, Bitung, North Sulawesi, Bitung, North Sulawesi, Indonesia

OPEN DAILY WITH A GUIDE, WHICH IS MANDATORY - you do not walk into the reserve alone, and guides are engaged at the village of BATU PUTIH at the entrance, along with a reserve entry fee. THE TWO WALKS THAT MATTER ARE AT DAWN AND AT DUSK: macaques and hornbills in the early morning, and THE TARSIERS AT LAST LIGHT, when they emerge from their fig-root roost within a narrow window of perhaps twenty minutes. MIDDAY WALKS SEE VERY LITTLE. SIMPLE GUESTHOUSES AT BATU PUTIH make both possible; day-tripping from Manado or Bitung catches only one. IT IS ROUGHLY AN HOUR TO NINETY MINUTES FROM BITUNG and about two from Manado. The reserve is open year-round; the wettest months make the trails heavy.

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