Archive for July, 2008
July has been a busy month, hence my lack of posts (apologies) and it looks set to continue into August. This has definitely been Pondok Ambung’s month. Pondok Ambung is the Tropical Forest Research Station we operate inside Tanjung Puting National Park.
Pondok Ambung is set in a beautiful location on the Sekonyer River, TPNP. I have already told you of Rene’s study on crocodiles but I think it completely slipped by to tell you that the University of Reading’s ‘Summer School’ were here earlier this month. This is the second year, Reading University have run a ten-day field course at Pondok Ambung. It is always great to see students getting out of the classroom and into the forest. I hope it inspires them. They were certainly captivated by the orangutans and gibbons.
Pondok Ambung visitors; orangutans, gibbons, and humans -whose watching who? And just to prove there are always new experiences to be had, the day Brigitta (who contacted us through Wildlife Direct) was with us at Pondok Ambung, we found a tree that had been absolutely torn apart. You will have seen photos of the damage sun bears can do to trees in one of my earlier posts. Orangutans will also tear off bark to either get at sap or insects. But, on this tree, half the bark had been shorn off and huge chunks of heartwood pulled out. If it was an orangutan or a bear, I would not want to meet them! It was Rene who gave us the answer: the tree had been struck by lightening (he said there had been an almighty thunder clap and lightening flash the day before). That was why the wood appeared to have exploded outwards. Still it was incredible there was no sign of burning. Despite the downpour, I would have thought a million plus volts would have at least singed the leaves…
During last week, when I was in Tanjung Puting National Park, I had a close encounter that reminded me just how impressive these great apes are. Walking down the jetty from Camp Leakey we found our way blocked by Kusasi, who, I can assure you, is quite some bloke!
Kusasi and Tut blocking the way. Kusasi was the dominant male of Camp Leakey for many years. Tut, a female, sat patiently in front of him; if he was not going to shift neither was she. So we called Abdi who is magical with the orangutans. Abdi simply walked up to Kusasi and shooed him away, much as you or I would a kitten. Humbled, we thanked Abdi and walked on, only to find Uranus, another cheek-padded male, at the far end of the jetty. The rule with all orangutans is “never within arm’s reach” which means there was no walking past Uranus who has a 2m/7’ arm-span.
Tom, another cheek-padded male - thank goodness he wasn’t on the jetty! Kusasi had by this time returned to the jetty, which meant we could not walk on or go back. I tried my Abdi impersonation but failed dismally. With Uranus, we had to wait him out. It was almost sunset before he sauntered off to make his nest….
Hello again, sorry for the silence but I have just had another fantastic week in Tanjung Puting National Park. Actually, on Monday I was in Lamandau, on a peat-lands survey, but I was still out of the office and in the forest, which made for a good day!
In case you’re wondering where these places I keep mentioning are, here’s a map (Pangkalanbun is where our office is). At Pondok Ambung I caught up with René, the German crocodile researcher, and then spent a wonderful couple of days at Camp Leakey. There were orangutans everywhere! What was great was seeing some unusual things. Foremost on that list was food sharing between two adult females.
Above and below, Rani and Riga - sharing food
Young orangutans will often sample what their mothers are eating. This is part of the learning process; finding out what is good to eat. However, on Wednesday, I watched two adult orangutans Rani and her daughter Riga sharing food. What made this doubly interesting is that it was Riga who was giving food to her mother. There may be some biological reason for this – Rani’s three year old son is obviously Riga’s half-brother but that seems a stretch. Normally, the genetic drivers of caring-behaviour are down the generations, not up them. This could have been a case of dominance; the older female forcing the younger one to submit. However, it is also quite likely that it was a simple act of altruism: Riga had enough to eat so was happy to share with her mother. The final excitement of the week was finding a dead and half-eaten crocodile. We reported this to René who examined the carcass. He estimated it to have been around three metres in length and was killed in a fight with another crocodile. Almost certainly the other crocodile was bigger.
Sekonyer River, TPNP Having just bathed in that river it was kind of sobering to know there was a bigger crocodile out there….. As always thanks for your comments, questions and support of our work. Maciej G, thank you very much for your $50 donation at the end of June. Will try and post again soon - the daily powercuts aren’t making it easy!
Where did last week go? I spent most of it in Tanjung Puting National Park, having lots of fun and adventures, and only got back to the office on Friday. We are still experiencing lots of power cuts. On Saturday, we had a five hour one, 8 am to 1 pm, which put paid to much serious work. So here I am, Sunday night, attempting to tell you how I spent my week, obviously, without much internet!I went first to Buluh Besar Guard Post in the middle of the Park, and from there, to Pondok Ambung and Camp Leakey, where I met up with Brigitta. However, this all deserves its own post (to come soon), so I will just cut to today. My back garden has been as over-productive as usual and the latest banana tree, to try to outgrow the electrical wire to my water-pump, needed felling. What do we do with banana trees? Give them to Montana.
Montana with his banana tree. I went to the Orangutan Care Centre & Quarantine with a group of visiting researchers and found the big guy looking unusually bored. He was laid flat out with his massive head resting on his two fists. He didn’t even turn his head as we approached. Once the banana tree was near enough to be on offer, however, he sprang into action in a way that reminded me – yet again – never get too close: He’s quick! The stalk was inside in seconds, and then the leaves. And Montana was one happy orangutan.
Less pleased were the adolescents occupying the next-door enclosure, who wouldn’t normally dare so much as whimper at the adjacent cheek-padded Montana. Today, though, they were happy to demand attention from the visitors. We gave them extra leaves and they were delighted. I even managed to get a smile from one of them (unlike young chimpanzees that will literally giggle if tickled, orangutans seldom express pleasure), getting a full toothy grin was reward in itself.
Me with the adolescents. Thanks for your comments, Sheryl and Annie, about the paper (which we contributed to) mentioned in my last post, “Distribution and conservation status of the orangutan (Pongo spp.) on Borneo and Sumatra: How many remain?”. I agree, it is important to think positively and I don’t believe orangutans will become extinct. I think the programmes that we, and our partners, are working on in Central Kalimantan, will ensure this never occurs.
A very quick post. I’m off to Tanjung Puting National Park and will be back on Thursday. At some point I’ll hopefully be tracked down by Brigitta who has her goody bag for the Orangutan Care Centre and Quarantine. At the end of last week the scientific paper, “Distribution and conservation status of the orangutan (Pongo spp.) on Borneo and Sumatra: How many remain?” was published in Oryx – The International Journal of Conservation. Dr. Serge Wich, Togu Simorangkir from Yayorin (our Indonesian partner organisation) and other orangutan conservation experts, published new findings that reveal endangered wild orangutan (Pongo spp.) populations are declining more sharply in Sumatra and Borneo than previously estimated. It isn’t all doom and gloom so have a read of the full press release from the Great Ape Trust website. Many thanks. - There is a problem with our blogroll but it should be back up soon.
Sheryl raised two interesting points in her comment on the illegal farming: 1) “I’m sure the farmers knew they were on reserve land” We are pretty sure they did too as, in this part of the world, the Reserve is where the trees are! However, this is almost impossible to prove and, even knowing it is a conservation area, won’t necessarily stop the villagers from laying a claim to the land.
Slash and burn is commonly used to clear the forest.
Illegal settlement in cleared forest. Secondly, Sheryl wrote “don’t people have to own the land or have permits from landowners to burn forest and start a farm? I mean, here I couldn’t just drive out to the country and start farming!” Bizarrely, Indonesian laws concerning community use of forest lands still end up promoting forest clearance. If you clear the land it is deemed an improvement. Anyone who improves the land has de-facto usage rights to it. And those rights are passed down from generation to generation. I have been in some very old secondary forest only to be told this is “Mr so and so’s land…” In the case of the illegal farms, our only weapon is that the farm was clearly established after the Reserve was gazetted. It is illegal. Kind regards, Stephen |
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