Site Report: Komodo National Park

Visits

• 2024-09-01: After our very long trip to arrive in Labuan Badjo, we now were waking up again before sunrise to participate in the Komodo Islands day tour. I was very nervous about this as clearly this area has been overrun by mainstream tourism. Since we were on the early boat, we were able to avoid some of the crowds as we traveled to the Padar Island overlook, the pink sand beach, and the Komodo Island. One note about the Komodo Islands and the walk to see the dragons. The guides on the island found a dragon under a tree. We were all instructed to give cell phones to the guides at which point they crashed into the bushes to poke the Komodo dragon with a stick. The idea was to get the dragon out of the cover of the bushes (where it was resting in the shade) and into the open where every person in the group could pose next to the now very active dragon. This was probably the most shocking anti-wildlife thing I saw in Indonesia considering that it was the national park rangers tasked with protecting the dragons that were harassing them. There are supposed to be Cockatoos on Komodo Island. I did not see any, and I suspect most of them have been captured for cage bird trade.

Species Seen

Lifelists

• Asia
• World

Trips

• Indonesia