THE NATION: Orangutans to go home?

[Guest guest]

Back to the jungle

 

Confiscated from private zoo, 54 orang-utans are likely to be sent back to

I'nesia

 

While orang-utans Coke, 7, and Jelly, 5, were walking around a press

conference room at the Wildlife Department yesterday they might have been

happy to know they were a step closer to returning to the jungle home from

whence they had been smuggled.

 

At the end of the week representatives of the Indonesian, Malaysian and Thai

governments will determine where Coke, Jelly and 52 other orang-utans came

from, said Chawann Tunhikorn, deputy director-general of the Department of

National Parks, Wildlife and Plant Varieties Conservation. Once their origin

is established, all of the primates that were confiscated from a private zoo

in Bangkok in 2003 will be repatriated.

 

The presence of Coke and Jelly in the pressroom yesterday may have allowed

reporters to appreciate the animals' cleverness, but the director and

founder of Wildlife Friends of Thailand was less than impressed.

 

" What's the reason to bring them there? All reporters know what an

orang-utan looks like, " Edwin Wiek said. " They were loaded on a pickup

truck, not sheltered to protect them from sunshine, and spent more than five

hours on the road. Is that good for the animals? " he said.

 

Since the primates were confiscated from the zoo, environmentalists in

Indonesia, Europe and the US have demanded they be returned to their natural

habitat.

 

Orang-utans live in the jungles of Sabah and Sarawak in Malaysia, and

Central Kalemantan and Sumatra in Indonesia.

 

Chawann claimed the animals could not be repatriated until biological

information could determine their exact origins.

 

" DNA tests have to be conducted. We are not going to just send them to any

jungle because it could lead to genetic mixing, " he said.

 

Coke and Jelly, as well as the 52 other orang-utans now staying at Khao

Pratub Chang Wildlife Breeding Centre in Chon Buri, have undergone DNA

testing.

 

The results showed they were not the offspring of any legally registered

adults, but had been smuggled into the country. As a result, another round

of DNA testing is required to determine their country of origin, said

Chawann.

 

Chawann said he had asked Malaysian and Indonesian authorities to provide

DNA reference samples, but he declined to say how long the testing was going

to take.

 

He insisted the testing was being done for the sake of the orang-utans, but

Wiek was suspicious.

 

" I think he is playing a time game by dragging his feet in sending the

primates back home, " the conservationist said.

 

" All zoos want to show orang-utans and the [DNA] test is set up to lengthen

the time the animals stay in Thailand, " he said.

 

Wiek was worried the primates would be sent to zoos while the testing

process was taking place. Chawann admitted that five of the 54 orang-utans

had been " borrowed " by Chiang Mai Night Safari to attract visitors.

 

Wiek said the Malaysian government had already said the animals are not from

that country, while Indonesia has consistently said they came from central

Kalimantral.

 

" Orang-utans are like humans in that their homeland can be determined from

physical looks, " said the environmentalist who has been based in Bangkok for

more than a decade.

 

" People from Si Sa Ket are quite different from those from Chiang Mai or a

province in the South. Malaysian authorities recognised the first time they

saw the pictures [of the primates] that they were not Malaysian, " said Wiek.

 

 

Wiek and other environmentalists want Coke, Jelly and the other orang-utans

returned to Indonesia as soon as possible. They will hold a press conference

on the issue in Bangkok tomorrow.

 

Pennapa Hongthong

 

The Nation