Safariworld Orangutans now dying at Thai government's rescue centers

[Guest guest]

Safariworld Orangutans now dying at Thai government's rescue centers.

 

 

 

 

 

January 7th 2006 - It has been now three years since it was discovered that

Safariworld was illegally importing baby orangutans from Indonesia. We have

had 26 months since the park was raided, DNA tests proofed 18 months ago

that the young orangutans were never born at the zoo. Courts found the owner

of Safariworld guilty of illegal possession of the orangutans over 8 months

ago, which he did confess to.

 

 

 

Besides the orangutans at Safariworld, 9 other orangutans were found at

slaughterhouses and other zoos before the raid on Safariworld. 5 were found

at Lopburi zoo, run by the Thai military, hidden by a wild animal rescue and

protection NGO for an influential businessman.

 

It was found the orangutans were illegally obtained and the zoo confessed,

however the Department of National parks, Wildlife and Plants (DNP) has

returned the apes to the zoo without any explanation.

 

 

 

In October 2005, 56 orangutans were taken away from Safariworld instead of

the initial 57 found illegal. Safariworld claimed that one of the female

orangutans had died at the zoo a few days before the confiscation. The

animals were taken to Kao Prathapchang breeding center, run by the DNP where

special enclosures were built for the apes. At the end of December 2 more

orangutan babies died under suspicious circumstances, the DNP does not want

to comment on the reason of death despite various requests by the Borneo

Orangutan Survival Foundation (BOSF) for such an explanation. Another

question is how many more will die in the time to come?

 

 

 

When we look back over the months between the initial raid and confiscation

of the orangutans and today we see that over a time-span of 25 months a

total of at least 17 orangutans have died. At first 115 were found at

Safariworld of which only 44 were considered " legal " , the other 71 were

" donated " by various people to the zoo according to the Safariworld

management. It is a very big coincidence that all 15 orangutans that died

during this period were from the illegal lot. When we tried to gain access

to the medical records we were told that these are not for the public. It is

very hard to understand how 17 orangutans out of 71 can die within two years

while the zoo claimed they were very successful in breeding and raising the

orangutans.

 

 

 

A few questions remain; how many more babies need to die before the

authorities will do something? How many did actually die and what will be

the faith of those surviving, if any? When will the CITES authority finally

take action, a complete trade ban will be the least they can do.

 

 

 

Send them back home!

 

 

 

 

 

Edwin Wiek

 

Wildlife Friends of Thailand

 

Borneo Orangutan Survival Foundation

 

edwin.wiek

 

Tel; +6690600906