Orangutan Foundation

Category: Orangutan Care Centre & Quarantine, Orangutan Foundation Staff, Tanjung Puting National Park (TPNP) | Date: Apr 30 2008 | By: admin

I had a great weekend but the home-coming was a little rough. As we have said, the orangutans at the Orangutan Care Centre & Quarantine (OCCQ) are let out to play and learn in the forest. That is good. When the orangutans let themselves out, that’s a problem!

On Monday eight of the little, “less-than-adorable” orange bundles of mischief took it upon themselves to demonstrate just how rusty their enclosure had become. They popped out its side. Three were obviously a bit shocked at their new found freedom and contented themselves climbing up the outside. One went straight for the food room while the others dispersed themselves around the adjacent cages and our guess is they wanted to find the girls.

All of which would be an amusing anecdote if weren’t for the fact that their enclosure really is beyond repair. For a long time we have actually being patching up earlier repairs but that is getting ridiculous. It is time for a rebuild. And, as the staff are quick to point out, there is another cage in almost the same state.

Photo of the enclosure (middle one) that has now broken.

I am writing in the hope you will consider donating towards the cost of the repairs. A rebuild will cost 13,000,000 Rupiah (approximately $1,410/£714 each). The Foundation has found the money for the first - just so we can minimise the over-crowding that would be caused by moving the eight escapees to other already occupied spaces. At this stage, we have no budget allocation for the extra repairs. We are hoping to raise $3000. This will cover the cage repairs and money remaining from your donations will go towards building temporary holding cages in Lamandau, our orangutan release site. Your support, helping us to reach this target, will be most appreciated.

To put the “happy” story of the breakout into context, that same afternoon we received a tiny infant orangutan, probably around 9 months old. It is rumoured that his mother had been shot and eaten (a practice still carried out by some remote Dayak tribes), he was being kept tied up in a house. The village he came from is at the very southern edge of the Belantikan region but is in the same logging concession in which the Foundation/Yayorin’s, Belantikan Conservation Programme (BCP), work. The orphan was found by a couple of logging operation supervisors who took him from the house and gave him to Iman, head of the BCP team. Iman immediately set off on the seven hour drive back to the OCCQ.

I am sorry I did not have my camera with me on Monday - this is an orphan we received sometime ago called Abraham. Helpless doesn’t quite capture it, does it?

That orphan will almost certainly have to remain in captivity for four years. And he is only one of the thirty or more orphans we are likely to receive this year. I think there is no better testament to the work of Mr Sehat, Dr Popo and all the other staff at the OCCQ that they can nurture tiny, helpless, traumatized orphans into the boisterous youngsters who then break out. The number of orphans we take in and the length of time rehabilitation takes also explain the wear and tear on the cages.

A final word, to end on a positive note, what made my weekend so good: I went to Camp Leakey, the old orangutan release site. Seeing the orangutans which have been successfully rehabilitated, climbing free in the trees (see photos below) reminds you that there can be a happy outcome to such tragic beginnings.

Apologies for my awful photography.

10 responses so far

Category: Volunteer Programme | Date: Apr 29 2008 | By: admin

Stephen has been in Tanjung Puting National Park over the weekend visiting Pondok Ambung Research Station and Camp Leakey so we can look forward to hearing some interesting stories on his return! I have been reading through the past comments and noticed there are a few about volunteering or working with orangutans that haven’t had a response.

The Orangutan Foundation run a Volunteer Programme which is based in and around TPNP and the Lamandau Wildlife Reserve - click on the the Volunteer Programme category to read about it in this blog. Anyone interested in volunteering or supporting our work by joining one of the trips (Study Tours, Photographic Trip) that the Foundation runs should visit our website (link on the sidebar) or contact the UK office (info@orangutan.org.uk).

On behalf of the UK office thank you for your interest and support,

Cathy

Orangutan Foundation

One response so far

Category: Orangutans, Other wildlife, Tanjung Puting National Park (TPNP) | Date: Apr 24 2008 | By: admin

In my last few posts I have been explaining about orangutans and why they are dependent on the forests for their survival. However, the forests also need orangutans.

I have mentioned that orangutans are primarily frugivorous and that they are experts at moving through the forest canopy. The combination of these factors makes the orangutan an excellent seed disperser. Also, because of their large size, orangutans are able to eat bigger-seeded fruit which other species in their ecosystem aren’t able to. Orangutans thus play a crucial role in propagating fruit trees.

As orangutans move through the canopy they will inevitably bend or break branches, opening up the forest canopy. This allows light to reach the forest floor thus helping seedlings to grow and the forest regenerate. Truly, orangutans are a vital cog in the working of the rainforest ecosystem.

The rainforest floor - seedlings compete for light and space

The interdependence between orangutans and the forest has huge implications for conservation. I think I have written before that Indonesia has the world’s highest deforestation rate; it also has the world’s highest number of threatened mammal species (146 species); is number two in the world for threatened bird species and remains high up there for the remaining taxonomic groups. To save the orangutan, you have to save the forest and when you save the forest you save everything else. (For better or worse, that includes spiders!)

An example closer to my heart is the proboscis monkey, which is only found on Borneo. Tanjung Puting National Park has one of the largest remaining populations. Why? Because of our orangutan conservation work. As an aside, proboscis monkeys are fascinating in their own right. The males have a spectacular nose! (see photo)

Photo by Dr Mark Fellows - Male proboscis monkey (sorry the photo is so small)

Another special thing about the proboscis monkey is that they swim, a rare behaviour amongst primates. Proboscis monkeys actually have slightly webbed hands and feet and are able to swim underwater for about 20 metres.

Proboscis monkey swimming

Similarly, a study of the critically endangered Malaysian False Gharial, a type of crocodile, concluded “High observational records of Tomistoma at the main study site may represent the most viable and stable Tomistoma population of the entire National Park due to the conservation efforts of the Orangutan Foundation”.

False Gharial

There is a lot I haven’t mentioned and I could go on but I don’t want this to turn into a textbook. I find the science of conservation fascinating; indeed the Foundation always argues conservation has to be based on sound science. But, as the saying goes, science only informs. It is passion that persuades.

If you have any questions please feel free to ask.

9 responses so far

Category: Orangutans | Date: Apr 21 2008 | By: admin

Thank you very much for your continued positive comments on the last couple of posts. I am so glad you find them interesting. There are a few things I didn’t mention, such as how long an infant stays with its mother – whoops!

Theresa is quite correct; a young orangutan will stay with his or her mother for up to eight years. Their pregnancy lasts eight months which is close to humans. The new born is carried everywhere for the first year and even in the second year won’t normally stray much further away than an arm’s reach. As they grow from infancy and become juveniles, the young orangutan will move around on their own more (though still not too far from their mother!) and will only be carried occasionally. Juveniles will continue to share their mother’s nests until she gives birth again – normally six or seven years after the last birth. Sometime after that the juvenile will start to become more and more independent at which point we consider them adolescents.

The orangutan’s diet is predominately frugivorous (fruit-eating) with Bornean orangutans being more adaptable than the Sumatran species. Bornean orangutans can adjust their eating habits and in times of fruit scarcity, they will eat lower quality food such as bark, leaves and termites. Although they have been recorded eating meat it is clearly a very rare occurrence. I have seen them gorge themselves on caterpillars but never meat. In total, scientists have documented over 500 food types of orangutans diet.

So orangutans can have a broad diet but they breed slowly and have highly specialised habitat requirements. When judging a species susceptibility to extinction scientists make a lists of factors like these and orangutans tick an alarming number of boxes. An orangutan’s biology increases their vulnerability but there is no getting away from the fact that the single biggest thing working against orangutans is the value of the forest, either for timber, oil palm or mining.

One last quick, point before closing; Sheryl asked about orangutan eyes. Across all cultures three things captivate people with primates: their eyes; their hands and mothering behaviour, which all so closely resemble our own.

Eyes

Hands

Photo by Anna Lewis - Princess (who learnt sign language) and her infant Percy.

One of the “yes” moments in my life happened years ago when I was working in Nigeria. A Nigerian man was looking at a female drill (Mandrillus leucophaeus) with her new born. The man suddenly exclaimed “Ah, how can people call this “meat”, it is a mother and her child”.

8 responses so far

Category: Orangutans | Date: Apr 17 2008 | By: admin

Thank you for your encouraging comments. I shall continue!

Orangutans are the slowest breeding of all primates and have the longest inter-birth interval, of any land-based mammal, almost eight years. The female orangutan reaches puberty at ten years and will normally have their first baby between the age of 12 and 15.

(Photo by Andrea Molyneaux)

Offspring are dependent on their mothers for at least five years and this means females will normally have no more than three offspring. The combination of these factors puts the orangutan population, especially small fragmented populations, at considerable risk because they don’t have the capacity to recover from disasters that may strike. A slight rise in the adult female mortality rate by just 1-2% can drive a local population to extinction.

An orangutan without trees is like a fish out of water!

Orangutans are dependent on trees for their existence. They are the only great ape to be truly aboreal with females rarely descending to the forest floor. The majority of their time is spent foraging for food in the forest canopy while the rest of it is spent resting and sleeping. Orangutans build a new sleep nest every night.

Orangutans are perfectly adapted for life in the trees; their arms are much longer than their legs and their feet resemble their hands and with their highly flexible hips they can move through the forest with the greatest expertise. At 120 kg plus, a male orangutan is the largest arboreal (tree-living) animal in the world.

Tragically orangutan habitat is being destroyed at an alarming pace with Indonesia currently having the world’s highest deforestation rate. By protecting forest areas, such as the Lamandau Wildlife Reserve, Tanjung Puting National Park and Belantikan, we can help ensure that orangutans have a future in the wild.

In the next post I’ll talk about how orangutans play a key role in the forest ecosystem.

5 responses so far

Category: Orangutans | Date: Apr 15 2008 | By: admin

So far in my blog I have talked about the threats to orangutans and about our work to save them and their habitat. In my next few posts I thought it might be an idea to tell you more about orangutans, why they are special and why saving them is so important. Some of you, I’m sure, already know a lot about orangutans so apologies if there’s nothing new. For those of you who don’t, I hope you will enjoy learning about one of your close relatives!!

The orangutan is the only great ape found outside of Africa. Historically the orangutan’s range spread throughout Southeast Asia to Southern China but now orangutans are only found in isolated populations on the islands of Sumatra and Borneo. Click to see the current range of the Bornean and Sumatran orangutan.

They are classified as having two separate species, the Bornean Orangutan, Pongo pygmaeus, and the Sumatran Orangutan, Pongo abelii. Under the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species the Sumatran Orangutan is classified as critically endangered and the Bornean as endangered. The two species show slightly different physical characteristics and these are seen more obviously in the males. For example, Bornean orangutans are darker with shorter coarse hair and the males have wider cheek pads than the Sumatran.

Bornean Male

Sumatran Male

Behavioural differences have also been observed, Sumatran orangutans are more frugivorous and there is more evidence of tool use. The difference between the species, whether it is habitat induced or local adaptations, has yet to be confirmed.

Wild orangutans have only been studied in depth since the 1970’s and since they have a life span of 45 years plus, documentation of an orangutan’s full life span has yet to be completed. Long running studies are elemental to our understanding of orangutans. Their behaviour varies and some isolated populations display unique behaviour. Just over ten years ago it was discovered that wild orangutans regularly manufacture and use tools. In the area of Suaq Balimbing, Gunung Leuser National Park, in Sumatra, the orangutans had 54 different tools just for extracting insects.

What is obvious to anyone who has spent time observing orangutans is their striking individual personalities and the fact they are extremely intelligent. Their ability to imitate human behaviour seems limitless, so much so, that at Camp Leakey, in Tanjung Puting National Park, canoes have to be sunken to avoid them being stolen by orangutans. There are complex lock systems on external doors to try and prevent orangutans getting in, and these have to be updated fairly often as the orangutans eventually work them out!

Trying to break in!

Orangutans have learnt sign language. This skill has been learnt in their natural habitat and not just in laboratory conditions. At Camp Leakey, Dr Gary Shapiro taught sign language to an ex-captive orangutan called Princess. He observed Princess forming new words out of existing words that he had taught her.

Orangutans are culturally important to the indigenous people of Indonesia and Malaysia with many folktales told about them. In Malay and Indonesian orangutan means “person of the forest”, however there are also many local names that exist. Some Malays believe that male orangutans are ghosts and Dayak groups believe that orangutans don’t talk because otherwise they would be made to work!

Next time I will tell you about the orangutan’s life history and why this increases their vulnerability as a species.

5 responses so far

Category: Uncategorized | Date: Apr 07 2008 | By: admin

Apologies for the long silence.  I went away for a couple of weeks over Easter, timing my return to coincide with the next reporting period (which seem to come around all too often!).  We have to report on our activities, for both donors and the Indonesian Government, every three months and March ends the first quarter of the year.   The good news for me was, in my absence, the team have just about finished the various reports – gold stars all round.  What is more amazing is finding out what happened while I was away. 

Astri attended a number of meetings designed to harmonize the (Central Government) Forestry Department’s spatial plans with the provincial plan.  The end result of these meetings is that the borders of the Lamandau Wildlife Reserve will be adjusted to incorporate a large block of surrounding forest. 

This is fantastic news!  Not only is more forest protected, it dramatically increases the number of potential release sites and will make patrolling and monitoring much simpler.  Well done to all! 

Devis’ report on Pondok Ambung, Tanjung Puting National Park (TPNP) covers not only the fire but also the recent arrival of four Indonesian students; two of whom will be conducting research at Pondok Ambung, while the other two will be observing orangutans around Camp Leakey.  They found very fresh scratch marks made by a sun bear.

Sun bear scratch marks 

Sun bears are the smallest of all the true bears, being approximately the size of a Labrador.  They have amazingly long sharp claws which they use to rip through bark to get at insects and honey.  It is interesting to note the local Dayaks consider the sun bear the most dangerous animal in the forest, because of their habit of attacking rather than running if startled.  Sadly though they are the rarest of bears, endangered through hunting and habitat loss. 

Teguh wrote about the activities of the Buluh Kecil and Buluh Besar river guard posts, in TPNP, which he supervises.  They have clearly been busy at the Buluh Kecil. 

Buluh Kecil Guard Post 

During the month, in addition to the routine patrolling, they have started clearing an access trail from the post to the village of Teluk Pulai some 7 km away.  They have also mapped the reforestation site at the back of the post (reforestation is the major activity at this post, as the surrounding area was badly burnt in the fires of late 2006).  Some 10 hectares have already been replanted, though survival rate is not encouraging. We hope to improve this programme when we plant the next batch of saplings which have been grown onsite. What neither Teguh or Devis mentioned was getting lost.  They were intending to walk from the Pesalat Camp to the orangutan release camp, Pondok Tanggui.

As Bhayu narrates:

 “Devis and Teguh had crazy plan to walked from pesalat to pondok tanggui, using existing trail that they never walked previously. I tried to ask them not to but they insisted, rely on the GPS. So they got lost. After we arrived at Pondok tanggui at 16.00, we gathered the search party. We shouted at each other, but no encountered, so we went back to pondok tanggui at 23.00 and devis and teguh had to spent the night at the forest. We pick them up in the morning, exhausted and they felt so stupid i bet.” 

I can see why that wasn’t mentioned in their reports! 

Both photos of Pondok Tanggui 

Now, thank you and some replies. 

Thank you Theresa S. for your latest and generous donation of $100 and Hannah for your offer of support - the London office may be in touch. Elizabeth, thank you for your donation made on 3rd March, if you haven’t already done so, please could you confirm with Wildlife Direct that it was for the Orangutan Foundation (!).   Brigitta, fantastic that you are going to visit TPNP and thank you for your offer of bringing supplies to Indonesia.  Having discussed it with the UK office, their suggestion is to keep it simple and rather posting things from the UK to Switzerland, if you could buy some chewable children’s multi-vitamins that would be perfect.  They are always in demand at the Orangutan Care Centre & Quarantine.  Closer to the time, we can make arrangements to meet up.   

Lastly, on my holiday I took advantage of a fast internet connection to download Google Earth (as well as looking at this site.  Do you know, our dial up connection in Indonesia is so slow I can rarely see my own page?!).  If you have Google Earth you can type in Tanjung Puting Indonesia and the National Park will come up.  Lamandau is not listed but if you are really keen, I will give you some coordinates so you can find it. 

Again, thank you for your support and apologies for the silence.

4 responses so far