Orangutans in London.

Just received this photo and comment from Le Pain Quotidien (the sustainable and community-aware bakery and restaurant) who have been helping us celebrate Orangutan Awareness Week in London.

I bet this wasn't in the job description!

"I worked very hard raising cash instead of hosting as it's impossible to do anything in that costume. I only had 1 banana and there was definitely no monkey business. Also I now stink."

Thank you LPQ!

Thanks Sheryl for spreading the word on your blog (http://nothoney.wordpress.com)and at work - much appreciated.

Orangutan Awareness: A Personal View

After my last my about the day at Camp Leakey I received a short email from the Office reminding me that I was supposed to be writing about Orangutan Awareness Week! Whoops. Sally and the Yayorin team will be able to tell you of all the activities. I thought I would offer a simple, personnel view on why I have always supported the week.

We all need trees.

We know how to save orangutans – you just stop chopping down the forest and hunting them. Leave them alone and they will be just fine. But that isn’t happening. The situation here in Borneo and in Sumatra is very bad. Just yesterday, we were told of a proposal to convert another 10,000ha (100km2) into an oil-palm plantation. Not all of that land is forest, but a lot of it is and I guarantee there are still orangutans, monkeys, hornbills and a host of other birds and smaller mammals living there.

Spot the difference.

What lay behind the local government’s decision to give up more forest? There are a host of reasons but perhaps the ultimate explanation is simply that the return from logging and palm oil translates to cash whereas the returns from standing forest are often intangible. That is a balance that has to be rectified. Which is exactly why Orangutan Awareness Week is so important:

- The loss of orangutans and their habitat is irreversible.

- Consumers need to be aware of the true cost of the products they buy. The driving force behind the move towards sustainable palm oil is consumer pressure.

- National governments need to be aware of the impact of the trade decisions they make. The US is to be applauded for its recent amendment to the Lacy Act which will go a long way to stopping the import of illegally felled timber.

- Here, the local Government needs to be aware that floods which plague the riverside communities are linked to deforestation upstream.

- Farmers need to know that there are alternatives to slash and burn agriculture, that their household income can improve by better use of the land.

- There are huge ethical issues involved in the loss of orangutans as a species let alone the abhorrent killing of individuals. I feel this keenly and am sure many of you do too. However, climate change has now made the loss of their habitat an ethical issue too: tropical forests can play a significant role in mitigating against climate change. Truly, saving orangutans can now help humankind.

Without Orangutan Awareness Week how many people will know of the link between this smoke from forests and the rise in sea level? Without the work of groups like Yayorin how many people will learn it doesn't have to be this way?

We all have to be involved in this and that’s why Orangutan Awareness Week is international. The bottom line is whether to destroy forests or to save them will remain a choice that many people will have a hand in making. Only with complete awareness will we all make the best choice and orangutans are the perfect flagship or ambassadors for the forest.

What we all need - forests "lungs of the planet"

There are half-a-dozen or so places, Tanjung Puting National Park and the Lamandau Wildlife Reserve among them, that are safer today than they probably have been at any time for the past thirty odd years. Saving them has been a battle and we are now working on securing the peace. We can be proud of those successes but they are not enough. Certainly, we can not be drawn into trading off a few parcels of safe forest for devastation elsewhere. As the 10,000ha mentioned above shows, the battle lines are still being drawn. That has to stop.

The battle lines

I was touched to see the blog by Art for Gorillas on the Wildlife Direct. ). If children in Rwanda can be galvanised to care for orangutans what can’t be done?

As always, thank you for your support,

Stephen

The Origin of Orangutan Awareness Week - by Gary Shapiro, Ph.D. Chairman, Orang Utan Republik Education Initiative.

Todays blog is a guest post by Gary Shapiro, Ph.D. Chairman, Orang Utan Republik Education Initiative.

Many orangutan groups work throughout the year to raise funds to support projects in Indonesia and Malaysia where wild and rehabilitant orangutans are found. But in 1995 when I was vice president of OFI, I began promoting the idea of a special week for orangutans as a way to focus collective attention on the plight of the species. While it was started under OFI’s banner, Orangutan Awareness Week became increasingly celebrated each year in November by more and more organizations and individuals.

At schools, zoos, malls, parks, restaurants and other public places, people learned about the orangutan and why its survival is being threatened. Importantly, people learned how they could help save the orangutan by participating with the various organizations that were doing the important work in the field.

In late 2004, my wife Inggriani and I started a new organization, the Orang Utan Republik Education Initiative (OUREI), and asked Parliament member and former Miss Indonesia, Angelina Sondakh to be our Indonesian “Ambassador”.

Angelina Sondakh - photo from Orang Utan Republik

One of the first things we did was lobbying the Indonesian government to recognize and support Orangutan Awareness Week through OUREI. During the process, it was suggested that the name be changed to Orangutan Caring Week as the Indonesian word for “awareness” did not sound as good as the word, “caring”. It also occurred to us that Orangutan Caring Week conveyed a more appropriate level of involvement we were seeking by the Indonesian people. We all agreed that being aware about orangutans was not enough. Collectively articulating a concern about orangutans would lead to the people demanding that more be done to save the species. So in November 2005, the Indonesian Minister of Forestry in a press conference at the Parliament Building, officially proclaimed “Pekan Peduli Orangutan” or Orangutan Caring Week.

Sumatran Orangutan Education Consortium pass out information and meet with visitors to Sun Plaza Mall, Medan. Photos from Sumatran Orangutan Education Consortium.

A dozen Indonesian conservation and orangutan groups held an exhibition in the lobby of the Parliament Building in celebration of the special week. The press and television media helped spread the message to millions of people throughout the archipelago.

With official recognition, Orangutan Caring Week has been celebrated in Indonesia each year since that time.

Children's drawing classes, OCW 2007. Photo from the Sumatran Orangutan Education Consortium.

Photo fair at Islamic University of North Sumatra 2007 - Photo from the Sumatran Orangutan Education Consortium

Every year the event spreads to more cities and organizations including Java, Borneo, Sumatra and Bali. It is also acknowledged in other countries around the world including the UK, Australia, and the USA. While some organizations are still continuing to promote Orangutan Awareness Week, we should remember it is the collective message that is most important. Surely if we do our job well, we can enroll people to not only become aware of the species but to move them to action.

This year, Orangutan Caring Week and Orangutan Awareness Week are being celebrated over a 2 week period. From November 9-22 orangutan organizations and inspired people will be hosting a variety of events at various locales. On the island of Sumatra for example, the Sumatran Orangutan Consortium, an association of eight organizations (including Sumatran Orangutan Society, Sumatran Orangutan Conservation Program, Fauna and Flora International, the Orangutan Caring Club, Friends of the Orangutan, Leuser Foundation, the Orangutan Conservation Services Program, and OUREI Indonesia) will be holding a rally in Medan Square, passing out literature, screening films, and having open discussions on college campus.

Organizations in other countries will also be participating in events to draw attention to the great ape’s plight. In the UK , Orangutan Foundation will be holding “Orange for Orangutan Day” on November 14 and other awareness activities during the week. The Sumatran Orangutan Society will be holding events at Oxford University and surrounding areas. The Australian Orangutan Project has events taking place in a couple of their chapter regions: Western Australia and Queensland. Zoos such as the Greater Los Angeles Zoo are using the opportunity to increase awareness about all the apes including the chimpanzee, bonobo, gorilla, orangutan and gibbon (Ape Awareness Day: November 9). San Diego Zoo is holding Great Ape Awareness Days, November 13-16).

For more information about Orang utan Republik and how you can help visit www.orangutanrepublik.org

Thank you,

Gary Shapiro

Orangutans at Camp Leakey

I began my monthly report to the UK office by saying “as September was quiet, so October was busy” and I still think that was an understatement! We seem to have been on the go constantly since the holidays which marked the end of Ramadan at the start of October. You will be pleased to know however I have had the chance to spend some of that time looking at orangutans. And yes, I had my camera.

One afternoon spent at Camp Leakey, in Tanjung Puting National Park was particularly memorable. There were very few visitors and it felt as if we had the forest to ourselves. Tom, the dominant male, was around, looking as big as ever.

However, it was Princess and her baby Putri who made the real impression. Princess actually walked to the feeding site with us and when I say walked I mean walked. She was not bipedal (walking on two legs) the whole time but she did amble in front of us for a time. That was her chance to show off!

Next it was Putri’s. Once she and her mum had had their fill, they relaxed on the benches on which visitor’s usually sit. Princess began grooming Putri who lay back and loved it. No doubt, if she had been a cat she would have been purring. She got so comfortable when she rolled over she almost toppled off the bench.

Above us two other youngsters played high in the trees (apologies for the dark photo!).

However, the sun was setting and storm clouds building, so we had to leave the orangutans in the forest and hurry back to camp. We made it just before the heavens opened.

Save The Tripa Swamps - Sumatran Orangutan Conservation Programme

Ian Singleton, Sumatran Orangutan Conservation Programme's (SOCP) Director of Conservation, has kindly written todays post for this blog to mark Orangutan Awareness Week 2008. This last few years we, at the Sumatran Orangutan Conservation Programme (SOCP), have been kept very busy trying to save the Tripa peat swamps on the west coast of Aceh. Our “normal” work tackles all aspects of orangutan conservation (SOCP photo gallery) in Sumatra including:-

1. Confiscation, quarantine and reintroduction of illegal pet orangutans 2. Research, surveys and monitoring of wild populations 3. Education and awareness raising 4. Habitat conservation, especially the Batang Toru Forests of North Sumatra and the remaining peat swamp forests of Aceh’s west coast.

The Tripa swamp forests probably harbored around 1,500 or more orangutans at the beginning of the 1990’s but in the years leading up to the fall of the Suharto government and the escalation of the Aceh separatist conflict much of these forests were allocated as oil palm estates. Some of these estates cleared their land, established drainage canals and even planted oil palms in parts of their concessions, but all were then left abandoned during the conflict between 1999 and 2005, during which time they became overgrown and drainage canals became blocked and stagnant.

Destruction of the Tripa Swamps (photo from SOCP)

Digging Drainage Canals (photo from SOCP)

Over the last year or two, however, some of them have resumed operations, meaning new forest clearance (logging, burning etc), new drainage canals, clearing some of the old oil palms and planting with new ones. Naturally, many of the activities of these estates is not consistent with existing laws. For a start, peat of greater than 3 m depth cannot legally be converted, and much of the area under these estates has been measured by SOCP and found to be up to 5 m deep or more. There is also a moratorium on all logging in Aceh, issued by the Governor in 2007, but implementation of this regulation in the field is still lacking.

Much of the peat due for conversion is more than 5 metres deep and stores huge amounts of carbon. (photo from SOCP)

The destruction of the Tripa peat swamps not only endangers the 250 or so orangutans still surviving there, but also has major implications for climate change and for local communities. The peat swamps store vast amounts of carbon, which will all be released to the atmosphere over the coming years if the clearance and drainage is allowed to continue. Drying of peatlands also results in subsidence of around 1 m in 20 years, extremely worrying in an area on the coast that is already only around 1 m above sea level. Given this, the development of these swamps makes no sense, not even economically.

Due to the urgency of this situation, SOCP has been working extremely hard to bring all these issues to public attention. We have been lobbying local and national governments and our education department has been focusing on the local communities in the area. The issue has already been broadcast on international TV programs and published in both national and international media. It seems now that people are beginning to take notice, but we must continue to be diligent.

For more information on this issue please visit our website and download the Tripa value report. Also see a recent article 'Urgent Action Needed Over Sumatran Peat Forest Logging' in the Telegraph.

Thank you,

Ian

Make it an orangutan week!

It's Orangutan Awareness Week 2008! A focus for groups or individuals to hold fundraising events and raise awareness of the threats to orangutans and their rainforest habitat. Stephen will be blogging throughout the week and we will also bring you a couple of guest posts. Gary Shapiro, Orangutan Republik Education Initiative will blog about how Orangutan Awareness Week began and Ian Singleton from the Sumatran Orangutan Conservation Programme will report about their efforts to save the Tripa Swamps in Sumatra. This year we decided to highlight the important role the orangutan’s habitat, the tropical forests of Borneo and Sumatra, has in reducing global greenhouse gas emissions. Deforestation is the second largest cause of global warming. Andrew Mitchell, Director of the forest conservation organisation, Global Canopy Programme and a trustee of the Orangutan Foundation said, “If deforestation is the front line for forests in the war on climate change then orangutans are the ambassadors being burnt at the stake. Emissions from deforestation are equivalent to 36 million people flying from London to New York every day and unless this is halted we will lose the fight against Global Warming. The global community has one year to agree a workable mechanism for including forest emissions in the global climate deal to be agreed next year in Copenhagen. We along with our orange cousins watch with fear and hope." Read Andrew Mitchell's Director's Journal.

I know Stephen has used this photo before but I think it is well worth using again.

Orangutan Foundation programmes protect orangutan habitat by preventing the destruction and burning of the tropical forests and this helps to reduce global warming. We are also investigating whether it is possible to utilise carbon markets in order to conserve the Belantikan Hulu Forests. Please visit our website to find out more about what we are doing and how you can help. View short film on Tanjung Puting National Park   If you're doing something for orangutans this week we'd love to hear from you and it still isn't too late - go orange for orangutans this Friday!

Brigitta, many thanks for your monthly donation - this regular support is very important to us.

Thank you,

Cathy

Orangutan Foundation (UK Office).

Go orange for orangutans!

Hello again, Stephen is hard at work showing EU correspondents all of our programmes in the field at the moment, so I thought I would use the opportunity to a) ease his workload and b) let everyone know about Orangutan Awareness Week.

Put the dates in your diary now!

The 10th - 16th November is Orangutan Awareness Week. This week was initiated over 10 years ago with the intention of creating a focal point for fundraising and awareness activities for our supporters. This year we decided that we want to make it easier for more people to be a part of this event and so I came up with the idea of “Orange for Orangutan Day” on Friday 14th November. The concept is simple: as an individual you wear orange clothing, an orange wig, or even dye your hair orange to raise awareness and generate funds for our conservation programmes.

To make it work even better, we ask you to organise your own Orange for Orangutan Day, maybe at work or at school. If everyone involved pays just £1 or $1.50 to do this then we will be able to raise huge amounts of money to invest in conserving the orangutans and their forest home. Interest so far has been amazing, and we are really excited about how people are cottoning on to the idea. In London, restaurants are putting orangutan dishes (tropical fruit salads or sweet potato "orange" mash) on their Special's menu and a London taxi cab will be driving around with an orangutan (not real of course) passenger!

In Indonesia, Yayorin, our partner organisation, are focusing their efforts for Orangutan Awareness Week in and around Pangkalan Bun. They are showing films at schools and villages; participating in a talk show on a local radio station; and putting up campaign banners in strategic points in the town of Pangkalan Bun.

On this blog, during 10th -16th November, we hope to bring you some guest posts. Ian Singleton, Director of Conservation, from the Sumatran Orangutan Conservation Programme is going to post for us. So make sure you check out this blog during Orangutan Awareness Week.

Go on, go orange for orangutans!

Please go to our website for more information about how you can become involved and for fundraising materials.

Many thanks,

Elly

New Vet For Lamandau Wildlife Reserve (orangutan release site)

Last month we were awarded a grant by the Gemini Foundation to implement a system of veterinary health care for the orangutans released into Lamandau Wildlife Reserve. This will mean recruiting our own vet, which is very exciting. In Lamandau there is a system of post release monitoring and the orangutans are given supplementary food to help with the transition back to the wild. However, approximately 5 – 6% of all released orangutans are taken back to Orangutan Care Centre & Quarantine at some point, most commonly for small injuries or skin diseases and very rarely for more serious conditions, like Zidane. In common with all orangutan rehabilitation centres the OCCQ is full to capacity so the return of orangutans only puts an extra burden on them. Having a vet in Lamandau will reduce the chance of orangutans returning to the OCCQ, thus minimising potential stress caused to the orangutans as well. Tigor (Lamandau Rehabilitation Camps Manager) and I have finalized the job description and the advert has now gone out. Interviews will begin at the end of the month.

On to less interesting matters, it is report time again. October marks the start of the final quarter for the year; this is the time when we panic about how much or how little money is left over and what is still to be done. The written reports I can handle, it’s the budgets that I struggle with!

I probably share the same expression when I have to tackle Excel! (photo by Sarah Seymour)

Back at University, I remember courses on cell structure and function, zoo-physiology, population genetics, the biology of animal adaptation. I do not remember Accounting 101! What on earth is the meaning of “=SUMIF ('General edger' !$C$49:$C$115,C72, ' General Ledger'!$F$49:$F$115)”?

I love the two photos in this post, courtesy of Sarah Seymour. While the orangutans are undoubtedly cuter, their facial expressions remind me of mine as I look at those Excel spreadsheets.

Are released orangutans really in the wild?

Bernadette thanks for your interest and yesterday’s question: Is the feeding site to ensure that the released orangutans can get food if they aren’t able to in the wild? I’d like to know more about how the release site will function? Is it a huge enclosure, or is it really the wild? Rehabilitated orangutans, released into the Lamandau Wildlife Reserve, are given supplementary feedings every day. This ensures they maintain their physical condition during the transition period from life at the Orangutan Care Centre & Quarantine (OCCQ) to life in the wild. The feedings also decrease potential competition with wild orangutans and they allow us to monitor the released individuals. Frequently, the only time they are seen is when they come in for food.

Orangutans in Lamandau (sorry the photos are so dark).

As for the question of how wild it is: it is definitely wild. The Lamandau Wildlife Reserve has no fences. It is 760km2 most of which is forested. As you can see from the attached map, our guard posts protect the buffer zone (between the Reserve and the Lamandau River) which adds to the area available to the orangutans.

Just yesterday we counted six species of birds as we ate lunch on the jetty. During the time the volunteers were staying there they saw, red leaf-eating monkeys, proboscis monkeys, pig-tailed macaques (very rarely seen), a mouse deer and some snakes (admittedly the snakes were not so popular!).

They also saw leeches. However, let’s not be too hard on leeches as abundant leeches are a good indicator of a healthy mammal population; after all they do not exist just to prey on you and me. So even the leeches help answer your question. It is wild.

Thanks,

Stephen

Update on Zidane

In haste, I was out at the Orangutan Care Centre yesterday and managed this time to catch up with Zidane. He was having quiet time with one of his carers. They say he continues to improve, being more lively and interested in food. Fingers crossed he keeps making progress.

Thanks,

Stephen

Sad and Rare Death of a Baby Orangutan Killed by a Pig.

Tragedy struck us again this week with the news from Camp Leakey, in Tanjung Puting National Park, that Tut, a female orangutan, had her two-year old baby killed by a pig. It appears the pig and orangutans were near to each other in Camp when the pig turned and snapped at Tiido, catching the young orangutan around the head. One bite was enough. Tut immediately picked him up and when the assistants rushed over they could see Tiido was still alive but, within an hour, he was lying limp in his mother’s arms.

I am afraid I don’t have a recent photo of Tiido but if you zoom in on the photo below, of Tut sitting by the tree, you can see a tiny arm across her waist. That was Tiido when he was new born.

Peter’s photos show him when he was a year old. I am afraid I don’t have more recent photos.

Tut with her beautiful baby Tiido. Photo by Peter Ellen.

Tut was released at Camp Leakey in the very early days of Biruté Galdikas' research there. Indeed, she is the mother of Tom the present “King of Camp Leakey". Tiido was her fourth son.

Bornean Bearded pigs are common in this area primarily because they are omnivorous; they will eat anything. This means they can survive in a wide variety of habitats including oil palm plantations – where they are considered pests – as well as in dense forest. They tend to hang around the orangutan feeding stations so they can scavenge left-overs or dropped fruit.

They are temperamental and have been known to chase orangutans, probably in the hope the orangutan will drop the food they are carrying. In 1985 Biruté Galdikas reported a pig killing a young orangutan. But this week’s incident was the first of its kind in over 20 years.

Regarding Tiido’s death, I know people will say “that’s life; it is nature red in tooth and claw”. In my heart of hearts I agree with them. But I still feel sick and a little heartbroken (I threw a branch at the first pig I saw on Saturday).

To end on a positive note, thank you very much Maciej G. for your donation of $130. This is hugely appreciated and will go towards our new feeding system in Lamandau.

Orangutan Making Good Recovery.

Thank you all very much for your kind and supportive comments on Zidane. Yesterday, I had to go out to the Care Centre again and so took the opportunity to look in on him. I couldn’t believe it – he wasn’t there!!! The vets said he had been so energtic in the morning, once his sleeping-cage door was opened he took his carers hand and wandered off into the nursery forest. Time was limited so I did not follow him out there. Clearly though he continues to go from strength to strength.

I did however pop over to see the binturongs.

They weren’t best pleased to be woken up in the middle of the day but did happily come down for a sniff around. I still think they are amazing. Scientifically, binturongs are classed as carnivores in the family viverrids, which includes civits and genet cats. It may be simpler for US readers to think of them as racoons with attidute or, for European readers, to imagine a badger with a prehensile (gripping) tail.

By the way, the man next to the binturongs’ cage is Mr Sehat, the senior assistant at the Care Centre. He is absolutely amazing with the orangutans and is, beyond all doubt, Montana’s best friend.

There have been a few comments asking about who shot Zidane. These are good questions and it is still being investigated so unfortunately I can't give you any more information at the moment.

Thanks again,

Stephen

A short trip in Tanjung Puting National Park

Last night, before I was side tracked into giving you an update on Zidane (who I saw again today and he is still looking good), I thought this story of a weekend trip to Tanjung Puting National Park would be quite good fun. Now I have started it, I have a feeling it is going to be dull! As I've mentioned Elly from the London office is out on a short visit. Devis and I took her up to Pondok Ambung and Camp Leakey. The night at Pondok Ambung was great as ever and nothing is better than waking to the sound of gibbons singing.

After breakfast we decided to go for a short walk to have a look around. Besides one glorious veiled-lady fungus (beautiful but very smelly) and some pitcher plants, we did not see too much besides water.

Veiled-lady fungus

Pitcher Plants

All the swamps are full. I was the first to stumble in but, I am pleased to say Devis and Elly quickly followed suit. Also, as I was the one with the camera my mishaps are not recorded :-)

(Devis insists I tell you that, in the photo, he is not in fact falling over, but picking up a stick. I leave it to you to decide!)

We then went up to Camp Leakey. I hope next year we can update the displays in the Information Centre which are starting to deteriorate and look a bit tired. I was attempting to show this to Elly but understandably she was far more interested in the orangutans.

With Gara and her new baby around, who can blame her?

Zindane: Orangutan Out Of Intensive Care

This blog was supposed to be about my most recent field trip. However, this afternoon I had to pop over to the Orangutan Care Centre & Quarantine so I thought I would give you a quick update on Zidane. Bottom line – he’s out of intensive care.

Zidane when he first arrived at the OCCQ -emaciated and very sick.

A few weeks later Zidane is now alert and looking better (apologies if the photos are blurry. I switched off the flash again).

He is looking much better. His eyes are fuller and brighter. You can tell he is much more alert and active. His carers say his appetite has picked up, though he remains reluctant to drink. Tigor has, as a result, been plying him with isotonic sports drinks which, at least, he seems to enjoy.

“There are many a slip twixt cup and lip” and he is certainly a long way from being ready to return to the forest. But, the fact he no longer needs 24 hour care is a positive sign. I am now cautiously hopeful Zidane will make a full recovery.

In the next day or so I’ll tell you about the field trip. Sheryl, thank you very much for your most recent donation and your continued support. Donations will go towards funding our new orangutan feeding system in Lamandau and a new solar power set for Pondok Ambung, our research station.

Thank you and best wishes,

Stephen

Orangutan still very sick but now eating.

I went out to the Care Centre today to check on Zidane. While still in a pretty awful state he is improving. We have brought one of the Camp Buluh staff back to town to sit with him throughout the day. He offers Zidane food whenever he feels like it. Zidane is eating but he is reluctant to drink. However, the affection he shows for people is touching. He actually slid off his makeshift cot for a hug. Thank you Brigitta for your generous donation of $100 it is very much appreciated by all of us.

(Apologies if the photo is dark – I deliberately switched the flash off)

Elly, from the UK office, is visiting the field projects at the moment so she came to the Care Centre too.

Elly receiving an enthusiastic welcome.

There is a pair of binturongs (Arctictis binturong) also known as bearcats at the Centre at the moment.

They are very cool animals. It is a dream of mine to see one in the wild… as well as to Zidane back in the trees.

A Very Sick Orangutan

Two weeks ago we were all very shocked when Zidane (pronounced Gee – dan) was brought back from Camp Buluh in the Lamandau Wildlife Reserve to the Orangutan Care Centre & Quarantine. Not only did he have rampant diarrhoea, was emaciated, running a fever but, more worryingly, he had 16 air rifle pellets under his skin. We have never seen this before and therefore we knew we had to act immediately and sort out what had happened in Lamandau.

A very sick Zidane at the OCCQ

A Forestry Police patrol went out for three days to interview all the rubber-tappers working along the river. Yesterday, the Lamandau Camps Manager, Tigor organised a community meeting to which he brought along district Government representatives, the police and a doctor from the Health Department. We want everyone who lives or works inside the Reserve to take worming medicines to prevent more infections. However, as this is the holy month of Ramadan, when people are fasting, yesterday’s meeting was a socialisation exercise. Once Ramadan is over we will have another meeting when the doctor will distribute the medicine.

14 days on and Zidane’s condition is stable. For the first few days we did not think he would pull through. He was given two blood transfusions, from another orangutan at the Care Centre, was on a constant drip to keep his fluids up, and as far as his body would take it, was given worming and anti-dysentery medication. But every day that he manages to hold on gives us slightly more hope.

Having the individual feeding tyres for the orangutans will help us distribute their medicines more easily and will stop orangutans congregating on a feeding platform, therefore reducing the chance of infection – thank you very much to everyone who has donated so far. Please do consider donating so that we can implement this new feeding system throughout Lamandau.

New Tyre Feeding System.

Camp Buluh

We will also build another Guard Post on the western side of the Reserve, which will prevent access to the headwaters of the Buluh River.

Although I can’t promise Zidane will pull through, I will give our word that we will do everything possible to find out what happened and to prevent another orangutan suffering in the same way.

Thank you,

Stephen

Bringing the office to our orangutan release camps.

A huge thank you Anna M, Kit C and Wanda H for responding to our recent ask for donations towards the solar power sets and the new feeding system, that we are establishing in Lamandau at our orangutan relesase camps. Both projects are very important and still require your support so please do consider donating. In response to my post about my awful journey to choose a guard post site, Sheryl (thank's Sheryl for your offer of a donation as well) commented “Your day at work is always infinitely more interesting than my day at work”. Do you really think so? I can assure you we deal with just as many mundane, administrative issues as everyone else. The only difference is the physical environment.

A trip Uli, who is our office manager, and I made proves the point.

The Indonesian government has a health insurance scheme onto which we want to enrol all our staff. In order to do that the necessary paperwork has to be completed. Before the paperwork can be completed the staff have to, firstly, receive the papers – we are talking about eight different project sites - and then know what they have to do.

A lot of our field assistants are, putting it in completely western terms, “country folk”. That, of course, is why they are great for us: they know the trees; seasons; animal behaviour and everything else you could possibly want to know about the forest. However, the flip side is paperwork is completely alien to them.

Boths the above photos show Camp Buluh one of our release camps in Lamandau.

So Uli and I set off on a whistle stop tour around four of the five Lamandau release camps, (the idea being for her to explain the form and for me to get a day out of the office!). I am sure it would be a modern “Human Resources Department” worst nightmare. Four people could not remember their own birthdays, with two not even being able to hazard a guess at the year.  A lot of the Dayak’s only have one name. Therefore “Riti” was a typical example of what was written for the section “Mother’s maiden name”. Uli, whose full name is Iria Yuliasih Siregar and who came to us from an office job in Jakarta coped admirably with a situation that was way beyond anything she’d experience previously. And it wasn’t just cultural….

Outside the windows curious orangutans were looking in.

An interested audience!

At Camp Buluh, Omang actually swung onto the boardwalk to get a closer look at why so many people were talking so animatedly at once.

Curious Omang

And if I said there was an orangutan at Camp JL called Hercules my guess is you are not picturing a cuddly infant. You’d be right. Hercules is a strapping sub-adult male in the full flush of the testosterone rush which precedes the development of cheek pads.

If I am ever in a camp at feeding time, I always try to accompany the guys out to see the orangutans. Uli came along too. It was good to see Bobi and Dodon with their youngsters. It was less good to see Hercules barrelling towards us once feeding was over.

At a push Uli might agree with Sheryl in describing the day as “interesting”. The rest of us described it as “Phew!!! That was fun”. Which is amazing as all we were trying to do was fill in some forms.

Help Needed with Orangutan’s New Feeding Sites

Last week I asked for your help to buy a solar power set for Pondok Ambung, our research station, well I'd like to ask for it again.

In May I wrote about how we had changed the feeding system at Camp Siswoyo in the Lamandau Wildlife Reserve (Feeding Orangutans - A New Approach). Instead of using a feeding platform as is done at all the other release camps, at Siswoyo we have hung cut-up and inside-out car tyres from trees. The orangutans’ food is then dropped into these heavy-duty “buckets”; the one tyre per orangutan system reduces competition, allows us to give an extra large portion to hungry or pregnant orangutans, or those with infants and the tyres eliminate the risk of disease transfer from the orangutans walking across a dirty feeding platform.

In May, I said the system was not 100% perfect. We have tried tweaking it: some of the tyres have been lowered so the field assistants can get the food out quicker; and the tyres are now in more of a circular arrangement, rather than in a line, so the orangutans do not all congregate at the start. This week Tigor, the Lamandau Camps Manager and I reviewed the system. Our conclusion was that we should do it in the other five camps!

And that is why I am asking for your help.

We need an extra 80 tyres; for efficiency we will buy an angle grinder so we can cut up the tyres ourselves and a bore to make the drainage holes; we need steel cable to attach the tyres to the trees and step ladders. The total cost will be just over $500 (5 million Indonesian rupiah)

Thank you Mary H. for your donation of $15 on September 1st and Brigitta for your donation $20 on the 5th September- we really appreciate your support.

On a final note, I would encourage all of you to do as Sheryl suggested and sign the petition http://getactive.peta.org/campaign/anjelica_huston_video to end the use of great apes by the entertainment industry. In addition to the obvious welfare issues surrounding performing animals, I read recently “A survey conducted of visitors to Great Ape Trust and cited in Science magazine (March 14, 2008) showed that the appearance of apes in advertising and entertainment negatively influenced the general public’s perception of the conservation status of apes in the wild.”I hope you can help.

As always, I will update you as we progress and thank you in advance.

Stephen.

Add Power To Our Research

Pondok Ambung, our research station in Tanjung Puting National Park, has been mentioned quite a bit in my blog. In the late 80's, Pondok Ambung was established as a proboscis monkey research site but by the end of 90's it had been badly damaged by illegal loggers. The Orangutan Foundation's team of volunteers repaired the site in 2001 but it remained abandoned until 2005 when the Rufford Maurice Laing Foundation awarded us a grant for its complete renovation.

And this is what we did.

The station requires a new solar power set. Solar is the only source of power providing electricity for the station. A new solar set costs $600 and any donations towards this amount would be hugely appreciated. So far the running and maintenance of the station has been entirely funded by the Foundation or from fees received from researchers staying at Pondok Ambung.

Recently, Pondok Ambung was used as the base for the “Orang-utan ‘08” expedition from the University of Aberdeen, Scotland. A team of four undergraduates led by Graham Banes spent eight weeks in Tanjung Puting studying the effects of disturbance, particularly forest fires, on the distribution and density of orangutans. Encouraging scientific research in Tanjung Puting National Park creates the knock on effect of increasing support for its protection.

Here are some of the incredible species that have drawn researchers to Pondok Ambung so far.

Malaysian False Gharial (Tomistoma schlegelii)

Proboscis Monkey

Tarsier

Tropical Pitcher Plant

And of course...Orangutans!

Thanks for your comments on my last post - I've just about recovered!

Identifying Individual Orangutans

Paula's question of how do we identify individual orangutans is a good one. In many ways, recognition is done as we do with people: it is the whole appearance which guides identity. As with chimpanzees, but unlike gorillas, orangutans have lots of individual differences. One of the features I find most useful is the "forehead bump" all orangutans have but whose shape and size varies. Other unique features are hair colour, hair patterns, body-size, moles and scars. Adult males (cheek-padders) are easy; they all have different facial patterns and pad shapes. You learn to tell adult females apart by their individual appearance. The group I find the hardest (and at times impossible) to identify are old juveniles – young adolescents; orangutans aged from around 5 - 10 all look very similar. You can not tell the sexes apart; they all still retain a youthful lightness to their skin and, quite frankly, appear identical! Only the Assistants who see them very frequently can tell them apart.

I hope the attached photos show what I am talking about:

Tata: She is a big female; eyes quite close together; dark hair crown.

Princess: She has a line running from her nose to under her right eye, otherwise she has a smooth face with a narrow, pointy forehead-bump. Her coat colour is dark.

Siswi: Obvious!

Tut: Tut is thin to the point of being gangly; she has a distinctive fringe and her face is very lined.

Uning: Obviously still a young adult; Uning retains the lightness around the eyes and mouth which is typical of young orangutans. Her eyes are also quite close together.

Badut: Compared with other adult males, Badut has a narrow face.

Kusasi: His cheek pads are incredibly ragged.

Masran: The join of his cheek-pads is very triangular and he has a notch on his left pad.

Tom: Like Siswi, when Tom is around you know it! However, the join between his cheek pads is distinctive. I describe it as “messy”. Compare it with the photo of Win and you’ll see what I mean.

Win: Has a very obvious crease running across his left cheek-pad.

Juvenile: Beat me! I can’t even tell if the orangutan in the photo is a boy or a girl :-)

Photographs by Anna Lewis, Hugh Sturrock, Melissa Tolley, Ursula Fuller and Stephen Brend.