Please meet Dr. Fikri, our new vet, for the orangutans in Lamandau Wildlife Reserve.
Mr Tigor our Orangutan Reintroduction Programme Manager, is on the left (reluctant to stand still and smile!) and Dr Fikri is on the right.
Dr Fikri is a graduate from the prestigious Bogor Agricultural Institute, Indonesia and, as part of his work experience, spent six months at the Orangutan Care Centre & Quarantine in 2004. His last job was vaccinating poultry against bird flu. While he felt it was a necessary task (the bird flu epidemic continues here) he says he could not wait to get back to wildlife work.
Dr Fikri's clinic in Lamandau.
Accomodation
With funding from the Gemini Foundation we have established a small clinic and accomodation for him at Camp Gemini (again, generously funded by the Gemini Foundation), which is the most central of our five release camps, and we are in the process of acquiring all the necessary anaesthetics and other veterinary medicines. In the meantime, Fikri is being busy getting to know the orangutans. He has put Zidane on a special weight-gain diet. Zidane’s starting weight is 28kg and we’ll let you know as he improves.
I do have a request for you though. Please could you help us raise $250 - $300 that we need to buy two robust digital cameras? Tigor and Fikri require them for identifying orangutans and taking case photos. They promise to post their pictures on Wildlife Direct!
Here’s a sample of mine from my day out with them yesterday. I have no doubt Tigor and Fikri’s pictures would be better!
Thank you.
Gorzitze, an orangutan in Lamandau Wildlife Reserve.
Released orangutan, Queen and her infant in Lamandau.
