(ID) Senior Ragunan Zoo curator speaks out for orangs

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, January/February 2009:

 

 

Senior Ragunan Zoo curator speaks out for orangs

 

JAKARTA, Indonesia--Ragunan Zoo senior

curator Ulrike Freifrau von Mengden on December

30, 2008 for the second time in three years put

her unpaid job and her home inside the zoo at

risk by speaking out on behalf of the orangutans

she has looked after ever since the zoo opened.

Prompting von Mengden's concern each time

were the implications for nearly 50 orangutans

of a long-evolving deal whereby the Ragunan Zoo

is reportedly to acquire a female gorilla from

the Howletts Wild Animal Park in Britain in early

2009, in trade for 12 primates of Indonesian

species.

Brokered by Gibbon Foundation director

Willie Smits, a Dutch-born Indonesian resident,

the exchange was disclosed in February 2006.

Five silvery gibbons and several Javan langurs

were sent to Howletts. Smits credited Howletts

with curing the gibbons of diseases and getting

them out of small cages.

Preparations to receive the female

gorilla are still underway, Ragunan Zoo

spokesperson Bambang Wahyudi recently told

Mariani Dewi of the Jakarta Post.

The female gorilla is expected to arrive

after a Ragunan Zoo veterinarian, a senior

keeper, and a data base administrator complete

three months of training at Howletts. Their

training started in October 2008.

The series of animal swaps that are to

culminate in the Ragunan Zoo acquring the female

gorilla began coincidental with the opening of

the Puck Schmutzer Primate Center in 2002, when

Howletts sent four young male gorillas to the

Ragunan Zoo. Only three of the gorillas have

been mentioned in recent Ragunan Zoo

announcements and media coverage. The

International Primate Protection League has

received a report that the missing gorilla died

from head injuries, but has not been able to

confirm it, IPPL founder Shirley McGreal told

ANIMAL PEOPLE.

Schmutzer, the Swiss patron of the

Liechtenstein-based Gibbon Foundation, and

longtime sponsor of von Mengden's position at the

Ragunan Zoo, funded the primate center in 2000.

A longtime friend of Howletts founder John

Aspinall, who died in 2000, Schmutzer died in

2006. The Gibbon Foundation appears to have

subsequently collapsed.

Von Mengden has contended since soon

after Schmutzer's death that Schmutzer would not

have approved of the subsequent actions of

Ragunan Zoo director Sri Mulyono. Hired in 2004,

Sri Mulyono is the eighth Ragunan Zoo director

von Mengden has worked under. A German-trained

medical technical assistant, von Mengden

emigrated to Indonesia in 1952, and soon became

a volunteer at the former Cikini Zoo in Jakarta.

" Forty years ago the then-Jakarta

Governor Ali Sadikin, Cikini Zoo director

Benjamin Galstaun, his biologist wife, and I

moved the zoo from Central Jakarta to Ragunan, "

von Mengden recalled in 2006. " Since then I have

lived in a part of the zoo not open to the

public, rearing young orangutans, babies of

killed mothers, and animals who have been

confiscated from people keeping them illegally as

pets. We prepare them to be released into their

natural habitat, " a goal that Aspinall,

Schmutzer, and Smits all favored.

The primate center had semi-autonomy

under the previous directors, but Smits'

" critical remarks and public protest against the

wide destruction of the rain forests in Indonesia

and clashes with the departments in charge,

created high tension, " von Mengden charged in

2006.

When the Gibbon Found-ation was no longer

able to fund the primate center, von Mengden

said, " In May 2006 the city government handed

over the management centre to the zoo director.

This resulted in the dismissal of a number of

qualified employees. The well-equipped workshop

with good technicians was closedŠNow I don't have

much left from my old age pension for food for

the neglected animals, repair of old cages, for

medicine, and for salaries of many workers.

" The original plan was to keep animals

only from Southeast Asia to promote knowledge of

them among the people, especially children, but

was abandoned, " von Mengden alleged.

" The original aim of the center catering

to the poor was diminished, " von Mengden added

in her December 2008 statement, " since entry

into the primate center requires a separate fee,

prohibitively expensive for poor Indonesian

children. The center currently houses a variety

of primates, " she noted, " including

chimpanzees, three African gorillas, gibbons,

siamangs, lorises and a few fortunate

orangutans. "

But the Primate Center does not house the

whole Ragunan Zoo orangutan collection, von

Mengden wrote to the Jakarta Post.

" Unbeknownst to most visitors, " von Mengden

said, " there are close to 50 other orangutans

living at the zoo. These orangutans could not be

accommodated in the primate center, but were

promised new enclosures. That promise has been

unfulfilled. For more then 10 years, " von

Mengden added, " I have been waiting for the

release of several eligible orangutans back into

the wild. Currently, they are waiting patiently

in rotten dark cages, some of which were built

for bears and cats, and were used for quarantine

areas. Many times full-grown orangutans have

tried to escape. One managed to lift a piece of

iron fence from the concrete walls, so desperate

was that orangutan to see sunlight.

" My hopes quickly turned to bitter

tears, " von Mengden said, " when I learned that

[construction at the zoo] would become a new

gorilla enclosure! How can Indonesia's beloved

national treasures sit and rot while the zoo

builds a beautiful enclosure for an African

animal? Who will care for Indonesia's red-haired

children, " she asked, " if not the Indonesian

people themselves? "

Commented McGreal, " IPPL fails to

understand how exhibiting gorillas will help

Indonesia's unique red apes, who are in

desperate straits. England often has dismal

dreary weather, totally unsuitable for

rainforest primates. It seems that a lot of

money has been spent on this questionable animal

deal, including plenty on travel. This was

money better spent on protecting Indonesia's

forests and wonderful animals. "

 

--

Merritt Clifton

Editor, ANIMAL PEOPLE

P.O. Box 960

Clinton, WA 98236

 

Telephone: 360-579-2505

Fax: 360-579-2575

E-mail: anmlpepl

Web: www.animalpeoplenews.org

 

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