Thai monkey business over as orangutans head home

[Guest guest]

News

14 Sep 06

 

Thai monkey business over as orangutans head home

 

BANGKOK (Reuters) - One of the world's largest cases of great ape smuggling

will draw to a close next week when around 50 orangutan rescued from a Thai

amusement park fly home to their native Indonesia, a wildlife campaigner

said on Thursday.

 

The trafficked animals, many of them forced to stage mock kick-boxing bouts

at Bangkok's Safari World theme park, will be greeted on their arrival by

the wife of Indonesian president Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono.

 

" It's a huge scandal and it's cost a lot of time and effort, so I'm really

happy to see it coming it to an end after more than three years, " said Edwin

Wiek of Wildlife Friends Foundation Thailand.

 

The orangutan, being held in an animal rescue center west of the capital,

would leave Bangkok on an Indonesian military transport plane on October 23,

Wiek said. An Indonesian embassy spokesman confirmed the repatriation plan,

but said only 41 of the long-armed, reddish-brown primates were on the

manifest, rather than 53 mentioned by Wiek.

 

After a police bust in 2004, Safari World's owners said their 115 orangutan

were the result of a successful domestic breeding program. However, DNA

tests proved many of the apes had been taken from Indonesia, setting the

wheels in motion for their eventual departure from Thailand, a hub of the

international illegal wildlife trade.

 

After the deaths or disappearance of at least 27 orangutan and a string of

legal battles involving Wiek, forestry police and the National Parks

department, the first batch was cleared for take off.

 

Fewer than 30,000 orangutan are thought to be left in the jungles of

Malaysia and Indonesia and environmentalists say the species could become

extinct in 20 years if the current rate of decline continues.

 

http://news./s/nm/20060914/sc_nm/thailand_orangutans_dc

=====================

From the Wildlife Friends of Thailand (WFFT) site:

 

September 2006

 

After a fight of almost 4 years we will soon finally send back the first

batch of orangutans from Thailand to Indonesia.

 

The struggle to help these poor animals from the illegal wildlife trade has

taken its toll. After so many years and even more trouble we can hardly

believe that it is finally happening, and we do realize that it is not the

end. Still many more orangutans and other species of wildlife are being

traded and kept illegally in horrible conditions in the region. It seems

only to get worse, and the orangutan case (although considered the largest

smuggling case ever of great apes in the world) seems to be only the tip of

the iceberg.

 

The WFFT has worked together with the Thai AGA and the BOSF of Indonesia on

this case for many years in cooperation with the Thai Forestry Police and is

happy to see some progress..

 

The first 41 orangutans are to be taken back by Indonesian military plane on

the 23rd of September.

 

http://wfft.org/wrccomefrom.htm

=====================

Borneo Orangutan Survival Foundation (BOS)

 

The Borneo Orangutan Survival Foundation (BOS) is a not-for-profit

foundation supported by thirteen sister organizations around the world.

 

http://www.orangutan.or.id/