Thunderstorms, Trees, and Termites

Base of tree

This last Tuesday we had the first rain since December, at the zoo. The storm started after I left for the afternoon and delivered a substantial amount of much needed water. When I arrived the next morning, the ground was still wet, and the plants looked quite refreshed by the entrance. Unfortunately, with the downpours, high force winds sometimes occur, and, as it turned out, the wind was strong enough during this storm that it knocked down a couple of trees.


When I arrived to the office, the workers loaded chainsaws and gasoline in the back of the lorry. Ain and I jumped in the back, and we headed around the lake. The truck had to stop half way for the workers to cut up a tree that had fallen across the road, and Ain and I walked the rest of the way. As we came around a corner, we saw the fallen tree that we were really heading for, and it was massive! The trunk was probably around a 5ft diameter! It took the workers two days to cut the tree apart and clean it up, but the base is still there, it was too thick for them to cut through.

This tree had a shallow root system, which luckily meant that when it toppled from the base, it didn’t really destroy the new side walk that was right next to it. The tree had fallen across the road, but it also crushed a gazebo, much to Muhammad’s dismay. He exclaimed at least twice, “We painted it yesterday!” I could only imagine how much force occurred to break the concrete columns that supported the gazebo.

Termite in its tunnel

Many of the native trees to Malaysia don’t have deep roots, and this causes them to fall over sometimes when the wind becomes violent during storms. While this played a part in the tree falling over, there was another issue which was probably the reason it collapsed. The center of the trunk had been cored out by termites. It is a little difficult to see in the photo, but it was extensive enough that I was impressed how healthy the tree looked from the outside. Slightly ironic was that all day Monday and Tuesday, Ain and I spent checking the trees around the park for evidence of termites and supervising the spraying of Termacide. All the trees were treated, despite the presence of termites or not, except for those within enclosures due to health concerns for the animals. One of the workers had pointed out to us a couple of times though that a tree sounded hollow when he hit it with a metal pole. Most of those trees were “normal size” with a diameter no larger than a foot, while the branches of the large tree were about that size or larger. Termites are a big issue at the zoo, mostly because they have already been well established and the Termacide is applied to the trees and surrounding ground every month to try to preserve the trees. By doing this and the fact that many tropical trees like mahogany or teak are termite resistant, many of the termite lines on the trees turned out to be vacant of any of the insects.

The images below: Right side of crushed gazebo, After some clean-up, Length across the road, Spraying Termacide, Hollowed trunk, Left side of gazebo