Orangutan Foundation

Category: Orangutan Care Centre & Quarantine, Orangutan Foundation Staff, Orangutans, Other wildlife, Uncategorized | Date: Sep 29 2008 | By: orangutanfoundation

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

Tags: Orangutan Care Centre & Quarantine, Orangutans, Rehabilitation

2 responses so far

Category: Orangutans, Other wildlife, Pondok Ambung Research Station, Tanjung Puting National Park (TPNP), Uncategorized | Date: Sep 26 2008 | By: orangutanfoundation

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?

2 responses so far

Category: Orangutan Care Centre & Quarantine, Orangutans, Rehabilitation | Date: Sep 25 2008 | By: orangutanfoundation

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

Tags: Orangutan Care Centre & Quarantine, Orangutans, Rehabilitation

3 responses so far

Category: Lamandau River Wildlife Reserve, Uncategorized, Volunteer Programme | Date: Sep 18 2008 | By: orangutanfoundation

I know Stephen continually refers to time flying and questions where time goes…well, it certainly happens to me too. It seems like just yesterday that I was interviewing an eclectic group of people wanting to be a part of our 2008 Volunteer Programme and yet the final team are over half way through their 6 weeks of fun in the forest.

I participated on the Orangutan Foundation’s volunteer programme in 2001 and I now work in the London office. As Stephen mentioned in his last post, I’m currently in Indonesia visiting the Foundation’s projects. I’m going to join in with the last two weeks of Team 3 – what am I letting myself in for?

I will report back here, in this blog.

So far all the teams have made a great headway on this year’s project – a new release site near the Mangkung River in the Lamandau Wildlife Reserve. A release site sounds easy, but in reality it is a lot of work. From scratch we have to construct walkways, staff accommodation, kitchen, storage buildings, dig the latrine and make the release platform itself!

First finished building of the release camp at Mangkung, 2nd on its way (note the volunteer accommodation in the distance on the right)

Travel - volunteer style!

Team 3 are finding it quite a challenge to get it completed by the middle of October, however everyone who has contributed will be able to see the final fruits of their labour when we have our first orangutans released there.

If you think you would like to be a part of the 2009 Volunteer Programme then please visit Orangutan Foundation website.

Thanks,

Elly

Development & Volunteer Co-ordinator
UK Office

Tags: Orangutan Foundation Volunteer Programme

3 responses so far

Category: Orangutan Care Centre & Quarantine, Orangutan Foundation Staff, Orangutans, Other wildlife | Date: Sep 16 2008 | By: orangutanfoundation

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.

Tags: Orangutan Care Centre & Quarantine, Orangutans, Rehabilitation

2 responses so far

Category: Guard posts and patrols, Lamandau River Wildlife Reserve, Orangutan Care Centre & Quarantine, Orangutans | Date: Sep 15 2008 | By: orangutanfoundation

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

Tags: orangutan, Orangutan Care Centre and Quarantine

9 responses so far

Category: Lamandau River Wildlife Reserve, Orangutan Foundation Staff, Orangutans | Date: Sep 11 2008 | By: orangutanfoundation

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.

4 responses so far

Category: Lamandau River Wildlife Reserve, Orangutans, Rehabilitation | Date: Sep 08 2008 | By: orangutanfoundation

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.

Tags: Orangutans, Rehabiliation

2 responses so far

Category: Orangutans, Other wildlife, Pondok Ambung Research Station, Tanjung Puting National Park (TPNP) | Date: Sep 02 2008 | By: orangutanfoundation

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!

Tags: research, Solar Power, Tanjung Puting National Park

One response so far