Orangutan Foundation

Below is the video clip of our vet, Dr Wawan, stitching Melan’s head wound for the second time. It is quite gory so not for the faint-hearted.

This week Dr Wawan sent an update on Melan saying that her wound still looks wide, but there is tissue growth which is starting to cover the bone. Iodine, rivanol (antiseptic) and antibiotic powder will be applied until it is fully recovered. He is hopeful that it will heal.

Thank you for your support.

Orangutan Foundation

Here is an update from our vet, Dr Wawan, on a young orangutan rescued in April.  Ashley Leiman, the Orangutan Foundation’s director, returned from a visit to Indonesia last week. Ashley managed to get some video footage, of the orangutan having her head stitched, during her visit to the Lamandau River Wildlife Reserve (Central Kalimantan, Indonesian Borneo). We will share this with you shortly but for now, over to Wawan, who has written this post.

‘Melan, she is an orangutan that caught by villagers in an oil palm plantation area in Natai Raya village, close to the town of Pangkalan bun, Kalimantan Tengah Province. BKSDA (Conservation and Natural Resources Authority) rescued her from the village in with the Orangutan Foundation’s help.

Unfortunately she have a big wound in her head, like she has been sliced by knife or any other sharp object. We could see her skull because the wound is wide open, very pity little Orangutan. She is maybe 3 years old female orangutan.

I decide to clean and stitch the wound. I give her anaesthetic and I try to clean the wound with an Iodine solution and make it clearer from her hairs. After 30 minutes she woke up very suddenly. She is put in her cage at BKSDA office. I see the stitching is good enough and I give suggestion to keep watching on her whether she will scratch and or pull the stitches.

For a moment she is looks good by not scratch it hard, maybe just a gently touching, and some time she use leaves to cover her head to avoid flies come over. I think it is good and hope she will get well by a week.

Then 8 days after the stitching I saw unexpected thing!

The wound become wide open again and wider than before I think. She is in the cage with another Orangutan, I see they were happy keep playing and playing. I suspect because of their playing intensity, they shouldn’t put in the cage together. BKSDA decide to move Melan to Lamandau River Wildlife Reserve, Camp JL. The following day I re-stitched her wound once she was at Camp JL.

I gave her another anaesthetic but his time is was harder as the skin was stronger now and its very hard to pull. But I have one good assistant to help and he keep pulling the skin while I was stitching. That second stitching took 30 minute but looks better and also I give such strong glue with the stitching to make the skin stay together.

Get well soon Melan…We will keep you updated with her progress,

Wawan (Bambang Setyawan)

Orangutan Foundation Vet

Please consider making a donation and support our essential work. Thank you.

Here are the photos of the rescue, of a mother and infant, which we blogged about last month. Now, they are both safely in the Lamandau River Wildlife Reserve.

Please consider a donation (donate here) to support our vital work.

Thank you,

Orangutan Foundation

Our Orangutan Veterinary and Rescue Team were called to Pendulangan Village again last week to check the reports that an orangutan had entered into a community settlement. A large adult male orangutan (named Gagah - read past post) was rescued from the same village in November.

It turned out that the one orangutan was actually a female aged about 12 years with an infant, also female, aged 4 years.  Four Orangutan Foundation staff were assigned to spend the night in the village to monitor the movement of the orangutans. After two days it was decided to translocate the mother and infant to the nearby wildlife reserve. The two were captured and were immediately taken and released in the area of Buluh River near the feeding platform of Camp Buluh in the Lamandau River Wildlife Reserve.

The following day after the mother and infant were translocated to the reserve the team went to Kumpai Batu Village to check on reports from villager that there were three adult orangutans hanging about an oil palm plantation of about 20 hectares. The orangutans are thought to live in the remaining forest about 100 meters wide, which is claimed by the community.  More news on this to follow soon.

Sorry for the lack of photos, we hope to upload some up soon.

Thank you,

Orangutan Foundation

Please consider a donation to support our work - donate here

We are pleased to report that blind orangutan, Aan, has a new enclosure. It allows her greater freedom of movement and more sunlight gets through, which reduces the dampness and make it fresher. We would like to thank everyone who donated in response to Aan’s incredible survival story.

Aan remains scared of humans and she tried to bite one of our staff as they tried to transfer her to her new cage. Therefore, she had to be sedated to minimize her stress and the risk of injury to our staff.

Once considered safe, the vet took the opportunity to have Aan weighed. She is now 26 kg and so she has gained 1 kg seen her rescue.

Aan was still sedated as she was placed into the new cage on a shelf covered with leaves as bedding. Within a few moments of waking up, she started playing and eating.

Our staff regard Aan as a clever orangutan. She is surviving well by relying on her senses of hearing and taste. She is still selective about food. If given fruit which is a bit past its best or maybe sour, Aan will rejected it or even throw it away.

Please help with a donation to help us care for Aan.

Thank you for your support.

Orangutan Foundation

Dr Fikri has sent the update below on how Aan, the female orangutan who was shot over 100 times, is recovering. Aan has been living in a temporary enclosure in the Lamandau River Wildlife Reserve. We are currently building a permanent and larger enclosure for her. However, we still have meet the costs of her day to day care and we need to secure additional funds to assist us with this. Please consider a donation to help us (click here to donate).

Update from Dr Fikri

‘In general, Aan’s health has improved. She is always on the move and loves playing with the ropes and tyres in her cage. She rarely goes down to the floor of the cage, especially if there are other orangutans outside or in the evening when pigs might come near the cage.

When camp staff have to enter the cage to clean it, Aan always moves away to the far corner. She often moves by holding the walls of the cage so the camp staff think she looks like Spiderman.

Aan is totally blind having lost her sight to air gun pellets that were fired at her. Despite having several pellet still lodged in her ears, thankfully Aan can hear. In fact as she suffered blindness, the ability to hear seems better and tends to be more sensitive than other healthy orangutans. Therefore, for now, we have decided not to undertake further surgery to remove the pellets.

When feeding, the camp staff will call her name while sometimes knocking the cage wall to encourage Aan to come closer. Unlike the other orangutans, Aan is very picky about food. She often leaves unripe or less mature fruit. If the fruit given is ripe, Aan will definitely eat it. She really likes mango and pineapple. If both fruits are available, Aan will not eat bananas instead she will throw them away.’

On behalf of everybody at the Orangutan Foundation I would like to thank you for your support this year.

Season’s greetings,

Ashley

Ashley Leiman (Founder and Director Orangutan Foundation)

Here’s is an update about infant orangutan, Joson, from our vet, Dr Fikri, in the Lamandau River Wildlife Reserve, Central Kalimantan, Indonesian Borneo.

Joson, a young orangutan stationed at Camp Siswoyo since October 12 2012, is undergoing a ‘soft-release’ program. She is keeping in good health. She is agile and cheerful like a young wild orangutan. Every day Joson is released into the forest and she is more confident to climb trees and move between trees, adventuring further away. She also makes nests in the trees.

One afternoon, Joson was resting in a nest that she has made. The nest was quite high so Edi, a member of camp staff, couldn’t see her. Joson stayed in the nest a while with Edi waiting under the tree. However, after a long time, Joson’s nest  looked motionless. Edi called to her but Joson didn’t appeared. Concerned, Edi then climbed a nearby tree and then saw that Joson was laying in the nest, glancing at him in his tree. Feeling deceived by Joson, Edi finally laughed. He thought that he had lost track of her.

Every morning after eating and drinking in a cage, around 07.00 am, Joson is taken to the forests to learn through playing. She has been introduced to edible forest fruits and tubers. Now it is often seen that Joson eat some kind of fruit such as fig and guava. Joson also often go down to the swamp to take forest tubers. Joson also looks not afraid when she met with Baung, adult female orangutan, who has a male child named Alcatras. Joson kept busy with her own activity and did not seem concerned with the presence of Baung and Alcatras.

After Joson seems finished with playing in the afternoon, around 3 pm, she will return to the camp and go into her cage. Before bed Joson is given fruit and a drink.

Joson has shown a lot of progress. When Joson was first taken out of her cage and raised into a tree near camp, she was very slow while climbing. Before coming to the Reserve, Joson had stayed for quite a lot long time in a cage being kept as a pet by a villager. Her body was also rather fat. With her distended belly, Joson often look funny when slowly trying hard to climb trees.

At the beginning of her acquaintance with the trees in the forest, Joson often hesitated when climbing. Some time shortly after being up in the trees, Joson go down and walk on the ground and then climb another tree. . However, the direction of movement was often to return to the cage where she was staying.

Joson has undergone remarkable progress in soft-release program. It did not take long for Joson to climb proficiently, to be able to make a nest and find her own food. We have great hope that Joson someday will total release into the wild and be able to survive in nature.

Thank you,

Dr Fikri,  Orangutan Foundation Vet.

This has been a record year for the Orangutan Foundation in terms of the number of orangutans rescued and released into the Lamandau River Wildlife Reserve. The fact we can help these apes and offer them a safe refuge is a positive but it is worrying that there are so many apes in need of rescue.  Last week, two more orangutans arrived at the reserve. Here, they will undergo a ‘soft’ release process where, overtime, with help and monitoring, they will return to a life in the wild.

The two orangutans were brought to the Pangkalan Bun office of BKSDA-SKW II (Conservation and Natural Resources Authority) from Sampit, District of Kotawaringin Timur. Pak Hartono, Head of SKW II-BKSDA, named the 5 year-old orangutan Nisa, after his daughter, and the other orangutan, who is thought to be about 3 years-old, was named Lisna, after a BKSDA member of staff.

Nisa (photo above), who was a pet, had been kept in a cage for over a year. Lisna (photo below) was also a pet, but had never been kept in cage.

Our vet, Dr Fikri visited the BKSDA office to examine the orangutans. Lisna, the younger of the two, stayed calm. However, Nisa was very distressed and had to be sedated.

Thankfully both orangutans were found to be fit and healthy and so they were taken to the Reserve last week.

During the boat journey both orangutans remained calm. Dr Fikri held Lisna in his arms and she even fell asleep.

When Nisa’s transport cage was opened she quietly climbed out and went straight into the larger holding cage.

Whilst this was going on Lisna took the opportunity to do some tree climbing. The staff were impressed by her skills as she is still very young. Lisna looked very confident and was lively, often moving from branch to branch.

It then began to rain so Ari, an Orangutan Foundation member of staff, tried to call Lisna to come down from the tree. But Lisna ignored him, she was having far too much fun. Ari had to climb up and bring her down.

Lisna only stayed one night at Camp Gemini. A crack was found in the cage and it was feared that Lisna might break out. So the next day Dr Fikri, our vet, moved Lisna to Camp Siswoyo, another release camp, within the reserve.

Thank you to everyone who has donated over the past week – your support is vital to our work and we are extremely grateful.

More news from the field soon!

Thank you,

Orangutan Foundation

Support our work and have your donation doubled at 10am on the 6th, 7th and 8th December at http://new.thebiggive.org.uk/project/HabitatProtection

The wild male orangutan, who was captured last week in the village of Pendulangan (read previous post), has now been moved to the safety of the Lamandau River Wildlife Reserve.  Our vet, Dr Fikri, and our Reserve Manager, PakTigor, said the orangutan (who they have named Gagah – meaning handsome) was very agile, nimble and smart and so trying to dart and capture him was very challenging. Fortunately, Pak Uduk, our Assistant Manager, is a very able tree climber and is a good shot with the anaesthetic blowpipe. Eventally, he darted Gagah at the top of a tree. After a few minutes, when Gagah started to look weak, Pak Uduk and the team approached and managed to reach the orangutan’s hand. They led him slowly down from the tree.

The next day, Gagah was examined by Dr Fikri at the BKSDA office in Pangkalan Bun. Gagah is thought to be ± 20 years old and his cheek-pads are about 7 cm wide.  He is certainly one very handsome orangutan!

Gagah was given a clean bill of health and it was decided to release him in the Lamandau River Wildlife Reserve. During the journey Gagah looked nervous, often sound and shaking the cage, the whole time looking at the surrounding forests.

By late morning, the team had arrived at Camp Buluh, the site where Gagah was to be released. Due to heavy rains, Gagah had to wait in his cage for a few hours. Eventually the rain eased off and Gahah was finally released.  He immediately ran, very fast, to a tree and then moved to a more distant tree to leave the release team behind. In a very short time he was out of sight.

Please help us safeguard the Lamandau River Wildlife Reserve to ensure a future for Gagah. Your donation can be worth double with the Big Give Christmas Challenge 2012!

Save the date: 10am (UK time) 6th, 7th and 8th December

Your donations can only be doubled, online, at the link below:

 http://new.thebiggive.org.uk/project/HabitatProtection

Our Orangutan Veterinary and Rescue Team managed to rescue another wild orangutan yesterday from the village of  Pendulangan, which is close to the Lamandau River Wildlife Reserve in Central Kalimantan, Indonesia Borneo.

We were already aware of the presence of the adult male orangutan because the village had seen it hanging around, stealing fruit from their trees and on one occasion it even wandered into the village’s kindergarten.  Fortunately, we have a good relationship with the village and we worked with them to try to live side by side with the orangutan. However, it became clear the orangutan was becoming more troublesome and the villagers could no longer tolerate the situation.

The orangutan proved tricky to capture as he climbed up into the tree tops. It was made more complicated because he was so close to the village – we had to avoid injury to both ape and humans.  Eventually, he was darted and after being weighed he was taken directly to the offices of BKSDA. Our vet, Dr Fikri, is examining him today and all being well hopefully he can be translocated to the Reserve in the next day or so.