Rainforest Reflections: Day 11

Rainforest Reflections by Rowan Sharp (This blog has been edited to include more recent events.)

Working for an NGO that primarily focuses on habitat conservation, I normally try to avoid speaking too emotively or sentimentally about the animals we rescue. But when a wounded gibbon is clutching your hand as he fights for his life, it’s really very hard not to see the emotional side of things.

This particular gibbon had been kept as a pet by a local villager, and bound by ropes within their home. When the gibbon grew in size, and began to become wilder in nature, he eventually bit the owner. It’s a shame that it took an event of this kind to push the owner to give him up to the local authorities, but it at least landed him in the safe hands of the Orangutan Foundation.

It was clear from the moment we laid eyes on him that something was wrong; a usually very energetic (and potentially aggressive) species, the gibbon instead lay limp and silent on the floor of his cage. As soon as we took a closer look, we could see the deep deep wounds around his waist which had already caused a terrible infection. His body trembled violently and there was no shadow of a doubt that he was in a great deal of pain. Domesticated by years of being kept as a pet, the ape was desperate for human contact and reached out to us to be held…ethics and professionalism were thrown out the window at this point. His death truly felt imminent, and refusing to hold him was to sentence him to die alone in a steel cage.

This first encounter was heartbreaking for all involved, and it’s really quite difficult to put the range of emotions into words. All I know is that, at the end of the day, the feeling I felt most strongly was anger. Anger at the people who could tie up an innocent animal without a second thought to its well-being (never mind that gibbons are one of the most intelligent species on the planet). Anger that in this day and age, when awareness is so high, people still don’t see a problem with keeping a wild ape as a pet. And anger that we couldn't have done anything sooner; maybe somehow prevented the infection from getting to this late stage. But there was no one around to direct this anger to. We felt helpless, and there was little to be done but to hold his hands and hope for the best.

For the next few days, the gibbon was held in the Foundation’s office in Pangkalan Bun where he could receive constant care from our staff. He remained weak and his wounds were not visibly healing, but his appetite was building – as was our optimism. Sadly at 1:04am on Friday April 15^th, we received word from our night guard that the gibbon had passed away.

We are all devastated by this turn of events and can only hope that his story can serve as a lesson to all.

Rainforest Reflections: Day 2

Rainforest Reflections by Rowan Sharp It’s only my second day in Pangkalan Bun and we already have six orangutans awaiting their release. I’m initially not sure whether to be thrilled by my good timing, or devastated by the sudden number of wild animals in need of a safe home. Regardless, four wild orangutans were released into the Lamandau Wildlife Reserve today: two females, Menteng and Nurbaya, and their two male infants.

Despite spending each and every day working to protect our orangutan cousins, these four are the first wild orangutans I have ever laid eyes on! And wild they were… Menteng and Nurbaya greeted us with loud kiss-squeaks (the sound orangutans use to express displeasure) and aggressive rattles of their cages. Though it’s never pleasant to see an animal in a cage, the wild nature the females exhibited is a fantastic sign and bodes well for the success of their release into the wild.

Their immense strength was immediately clear, and it was admittedly a great struggle to transfer them from town to the river, and then by speedboat to the release site in the Lamandau Wildlife Reserve. The sun was extremely strong throughout the day and as time passed the orangutans’ frustration was mounting. When we finally arrived at the release site, Menteng nearly overturned her cage she was shaking it so hard!

But when the first set of cage doors eventually opened, mother and infant sped up the nearest tree, swung to the next and then rapidly out of sight. Nurbaya's release was almost identical. We were, however, aware that Menteng remained in the vicinity, because she continued to kiss-squeak at us from the canopies! Evidently she was tired of our company…

Despite the constant worry of causing any stress for the orangutans during their translocation, the actual release was an extremely calm and rather moving moment. Orangutans never seem to hesitate for even a moment before racing to freedom - if you had no interest in great apes, this moment might feel anti-climactic to you because of the speed at which they disappear out of sight – but for me, their scaling of a tall tree has an almost fantastical super-hero quality to it. I myself am extremely grateful to have witnessed these releases in person, and to know that these orangutans are now safe to live out their days in the wild.

But sadly the need for orangutan rescues is never a good sign. These orangutans and their infants were both found within oil-palm plantations in the Kotawaringin Timur district of Central Kalimantan. This area has proved to be an ever-rising problem for the Orangutan Foundation, with more and more orangutans needing rescue here. The Kotawaringin Timur district doesn’t have a single protected conservation area, and after the recent forest fires in 2015, the natural habitat is seriously dwindling. Only oil-palm plantations remain, and because orangutans are constantly on the move and need a variety of food, it’s hardly surprising that they venture out of fragmented forest into plantations and community land.

What is surprising is that this is the 12th rescue this year from the same area, and it’s only April! For a point of reference, the Foundation rescued 19 orangutans over the duration of a year in 2015, and all were unique cases from different areas of Central Kalimantan. We will continue to discuss these issues with the Indonesian government throughout the week, and merely hope these numbers don’t continue to grow in the meantime.

Restoring Orangutan Habitat

We bring you great news from Danau Burung, our guard post in the south-west of the Lamandau Wildlife Reserve!

This area was badly affected by forest fires this summer, intentionally started by local inhabitants.  In this area people started fires in the forest to quickly clear land of trees in order to encourage grass to grow, to attract deer and pigs for hunting.  Fire is also used to clear land for "slash and burn" agriculture, in order to render it useful for farming.  These forest fires caused widespread devastation throughout much of Kalimantan in 2015 following a lengthy dry season, causing them to burn out of control.

Thanks to two grants, from GRASP (Great Apes Survival Partnership) and Orang-utans in Not e.V (Orangutans in Peril, a German NGO) we were able to invest in a forest restoration project to enrich areas that suffered during the fires in 2015.  Ubar trees (Syzigyum spp.) were chosen primarily to replenish the area.  This is an endemic species to Kalimantan, which grows well in all forest types, and is less susceptible to burning than other species.  The leaves and fruit are also a treat for orangutans!

Our partners from BKSDA (Nature Conservation Agency, Indonesia) have provided us with a tree nursery, which our staff are using to plant and grow seeds into seedlings, which are then relocated to areas around Danau Burung.  Our Orangutan Foundation staff have now planted 1,500 seedlings in the area to restore the now barren areas of land.  Our target is to plant 5,000 seedlings in the Danau Burung area, and with this news we can successfully acknowledge that we are a third of the way towards reaching our goal!

Forest restoration is paramount to the long-term survival of orangutans.  If forest habitats are lost, orangutans cannot feed or protect themselves, and populations will perish as a result.

To DONATE towards our forest restoration project, quote "FOREST" with your donation!  All contributions are greatly appreciated!

Return to Safety

On 9^th February, our rescue team celebrated the relocation of two orangutans, a gibbon, and four slow lorises at Camp Buluh, in Lamandau Wildlife Reserve.

The two orangutans being released were both young females.  Narti, an adult of 15 years old, was previously rescued from a palm plantation, as documented in our last blog post ‘Last Tree Standing’. Ema is 6 years old, and was found in the Mendawai area.  She is still very young and although no longer dependent on her mother, will certainly benefit from monitoring and support provided by our teams in the Lamandau reserve.

Both orangutans left their cages immediately once freed in the forest.  Narti climbed straight up a tree, whilst Ema nearly fell in the water before joining Narti up in the heights of their true home.

Gibbons are notoriously elusive primates, living high in the treetops, generally only detectable through their haunting songs throughout the forest.  Therefore, it is quite understandable that the gibbon was ill at ease leaving the crate on the forest floor.

After an hour however, the gibbon plucked up the courage to climb a tree back to where he felt most at home, high above rescuers heads.

As slow lorises are nocturnal primates, all four slow lorises were released in the evening, so as to give them the best chance to adjust to their new surroundings when they are naturally at their most alert.

This is a major part of Orangutan Foundation’s work, rescuing orangutans as well as other primates and animals from ever-changing areas of land they once called home, and returning them to the safety of the forest.  Well done to our rescue teams on another great success!

New year, New home

New Year's Day welcomed three new additions to the Lamandau Wildlife Reserve! Just days earlier, mother of two, Sera, and her infants Karno and Rano were rescued by OF-UK staff from a rubber plantation close to the local town of Sampit, and released into the reserve after a few days of quarantine! Because Rano is a new-born infant, thought to be only one or two weeks old, the rescue was trickier than most others, and OF-UK staff had to be extra careful not to injure Rano in the process.

After all their check-ups from Foundation vet Dr. Wawan, all three orangutans were found to be in perfect health, and are now enjoying their life of freedom and security in the protected Lamandau Wildlife Reserve.

You can watch the full release on video here!

Happy New Year Foundation supporters!

Fire Outbreak in Lamandau Wildlife Reserve

July has been met with an alarming number of fires in Central Kalimantan. Break outs have occurred worryingly close to our guard posts at Vigilant Howe, Danau Burung and Sungai Pasir. As you can see from the map below, these posts mark the outskirts of the Lamandau Wildlife Reserve, which means that these fires have encroached upon protected land. The damage found indicates that these fires were set intentionally by hunters hoping to attract deer to fresh grasslands. Foundation staff, alongside the BKSDA, has succeeded in putting out the bulk of the outbreak, but for now fire surges on in Sungai Pasir. Limited equipment and staff numbers in the area mean that our teams have to work that much harder to fight the spread of fire caused by high winds. We are confident in our ability to manage outbreaks such as these; however the proximity of these fires to our orangutan release camps requires constant monitoring.

[Limited equipment meant that our staff have had to extinguish the fires by hand.]

Please DONATE and quote 'FIRE' to help us fund new fire-fighting equipment!

The True Guardians of the Forest

On the 30^th April, Foundation staff ran their routine patrols. As most of you know, habitat protection is a core priority for the Orangutan Foundation: if the forests are not safe, neither are the orangutans. The use of guard posts and patrols to protect Tanjung Puting National Park and the Lamandau Wildlife Reserve from illegal logging, farming, mining and hunting has so far been extremely successful. Thus after hearing new reports of illegal logging taking place in Pos Rasau, Foundation staff hastily set out in a speedboat with 7 people from the BKSDA and the Department of Forestry, as well as 2 police officers.

Here they discovered the remnants of illegal logging activities.

Though the perpetrators were nowhere to be seen, they had left behind 12 planks of timber, and 12 types of wood varnish. In a nearby location, many more planks of timber were found, as well as the personal cooking supplies of the loggers, who had again evaded being caught by our patrols.

Yet while on the river towards Mangkung, our patrols found a group of people loading more planks of wood onto their boat.

When they pulled up on site, the police and the Department of Forestry employees were able to order the workers to end their illegal logging in this location. Our patrols will continue to monitor this area in the weeks to come to ensure this order is taken seriously.

The Foundation is confident that thanks to our use of patrols, cases of illegal logging can be brought to an end before escalating any further in these critical areas of orangutan forest.

All in the day of an orangutan vet…

At the Orangutan Foundation, by the end of each day, hopefully we will have reached to you with stories of from the field, births, rescues, translocations, and recent research findings. But a day’s work can also include orangutans that have fallen sick. Of course, those events are just the beginning – constantly our teams are developing the Foundation’s efforts and working toward the prolonged health of forest habitat.

Recently an orangutan Jupe, a young female orangutan that was released on the first of July, was brought back to camp.  She was seen looking thin and weak. The vet examined her and conducted a faeces examination. There was no sign of parasitic worms, often a sign of sickness.  The vet prescribed a course of multivitamins and all signs are that she is recovering her energy. She was under the watchful eye of the camp staff, watched until she is well enough to be released again.

The latest news is that she has been well enough to be re-released. She moved off so fast when released back into her protected forest home, that she left the staff far behind (as they tried to check her behaviour now back in the wild) !  Our staff will follow her for around a week to make sure she's 100% OK on her own.

Unpredictable and new situations that require immediate judgment are of course common place in most places of work, but when the place of work is in the forests of Borneo, you have to add some extra unpredictability!Click here for more information on our work and our various sites.