(ID): International Animal Rescue: Protecting Primates in Indonesia

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http://advocacy.britannica.com/blog/advocacy/2009/07/international-animal-rescue\

-helping-animals-in-indonesia-part-one/

 

International Animal Rescue: Protecting Primates in Indonesia (Part

One)

July 6th, 2009

 

*Advocacy for Animals is very pleased to present a two-part article by and

about the organization International Animal Rescue. (The first part appears

here today and the second on Wednesday.) Founded in 1989 by Sir Alan Knight,

IAR helps wild and domestic animals with hands-on rescue and rehabilitation.

Through their offices and programs in the United Kingdom, the United States,

India, Indonesia, and Malta, IAR saves animals from suffering around the

world: for example, cutting free the dancing bears of

India<http://advocacy.britannica.com/blog/advocacy/2007/12/the-dancing-bears-of-\

india-moving-toward-freedom/>,

rescuing primates from the animal smugglers of Indonesia, saving migratory

birds from the guns of Malta, and providing veterinary care for the stray

dogs and cats of India. The IAR staff have also served as consultants to

the Advocacy blog in the past, for which we are grateful. Be sure to check

back on Wednesday to learn about IAR’s work with orangutans in Indonesia.*

 

*Rescue and rehabilitation of macaques and slow lorises*

When in 2006 International Animal Rescue built its primate rescue centre on

the island of Java in Indonesia, it chose to focus its attention on species

that weren’t being helped by other groups in the area.

 

During the first three years the team concentrated on the rescue and

rehabilitation of macaque monkeys and slow lorises that had been caught from

the wild for the pet trade. Some were rescued from the notorious animal

markets in Jakarta where stacks of rusting cages contain specimens of

Indonesia’s rich and rare wildlife, from fruit bats and owls to leopard

cats, porcupines and primates: all traumatised by their capture and

suffering in the unsuitable conditions, many of them sick and dying. Other

animals were taken from owners who had grown tired of keeping a wild animal

that was no longer a cute and cuddly bundle of fur, or brought in by people

who had been given a young primate as a gift but knew better than to keep it

as a pet.

 

Macaque monkeys are sociable animals that live in groups in the wild. They

suffer mentally and physically from living alone in captivity, deprived of

the company and stimulation of their own species and of the ability to

express natural behaviour. International Animal Rescue’s centre is the first

in Indonesia to help these primates which have no legal protection: they are

caught from the wild to be exported to laboratories or consumed for food in

Indonesia, but mostly to be kept as pets, chained or caged in solitary

confinement.

 

When rescued macaques first arrive at the centre they are given medical

checks and treatment for any injuries or diseases before spending time in

quarantine. At the end of this period the monkeys are socialised in groups:

they learn to play together and establish a natural hierarchy before being

set free on remote uninhabited islands where they can live naturally and

safely for the rest of their lives.

 

The slow loris is also cruelly exploited for the pet trade in Indonesia.

Even though it is legally protected, this charming nocturnal prosimian is

traded in large numbers. Lorises are openly sold on the roads to passing

drivers and in the pet markets. Before they are sold market traders cut the

lorises’ teeth out to prevent them from biting. This brutal mutilation

causes severe bleeding and often a slow agonising death from shock, blood

loss and infection. It is not yet certain whether lorises can survive in the

wild without their teeth and International Animal Rescue is sponsoring a PhD

student from Oxford Brookes University to research this issue. Should they

no longer be able to fend for themselves, they will be given a permanent

home at the centre in a semi-wild environment.

 

International Animal Rescue’s project in Indonesia is saving the lives of

countless captive macaques and slow lorises and contributing to the

protection and preservation of these species in the wild. The team continues

to carry out hands-on rescue of individual animals and also conducts

undercover investigations into the illegal wildlife trade. They also teach

local people why they should not keep wildlife in captivity.

 

—*International Animal Rescue*

 

*International Animal Rescue: Protecting Primates in Indonesia (Part

Two)

<http://advocacy.britannica.com/blog/advocacy/2009/07/international-animal-rescu\

e-protecting-primates-in-indonesia-part-two/>

 

July 8th, 2009***

 

**

*

 

The desperate plight of the orangutan

 

In spite of IAR’s determination to limit its field of activity, sometimes a

cry for help is so urgent and so desperate that it simply cannot be ignored.

For one species in Indonesia—the orangutan—the situation could not be more

critical. Not only is the population as a whole under threat, individual

animals are suffering and dying at a terrifying rate because of the

systematic devastation of the rainforest in Kalimantan, the Indonesian part

of the island of Borneo.

 

The cry for help came in the early months of 2009: the Forestry Department

of Ketapang, West Kalimantan asked IAR’s Veterinary Director in Indonesia,

Karmele Llano Sanchez, to provide emergency veterinary care for some

orangutans. West Kalimantan has been heavily logged and much of the forest

has given way to palm oil plantations. As a result orangutans have been

forced out of their forest home and roam the plantations, searching in vain

for food and shelter. Young orangutans are often caught by plantation

workers and sold to locals as pets, while adults are brutally killed or left

to starve to death. Those that are kept alive endure terrible conditions: in

one location IAR’s team found five adult orangutans living chained up on

pallets over open sewers, disease-ridden and starving, but with no one to

give them suitable food and veterinary care.

 

The orangutans that Karmele went to help had been caught in a palm oil

plantation and needed urgent medical attention. One infant had already

escaped by the time she arrived, in spite of a wound on his leg from a rope.

The team could not find him, which was a bitter disappointment since his

chances of survival were slim in an area where logging was taking place at

such an alarming rate. A second baby was living with the plantation workers

and also had a wound on his leg from a rope. Karmele treated him, observing

that he was in a serious physical condition and deeply traumatised. The

third orangutan had not yet been caught and was hiding in one of only three

trees still standing in a vast area of devastation. It was three days before

the rescue team finally managed to sedate the animal and take him away for

veterinary treatment. The two orangutans were taken to rescue centres, and

one was soon fit enough to be released back into the wild in a protected

forest. However, most of the animals in the area are not so lucky. During

her visit Karmele heard numerous stories from the plantation workers about

the wildlife they encounter—and kill—while going about their job of cutting

down the trees.

 

In recent years International Animal Rescue has lent its support to other

groups rescuing and caring for orangutans in the area. However, the scale of

the problem is immense and rescue facilities are stretched to the limit:

there is no rescue centre for orangutans in West Kalimantan, and facilities

in Central Kalimantan are already full. The charity cannot turn its back on

animals in such desperate need and, by adding its own efforts and resources

to those of other groups, it is hoped that together they can make a real

difference.

 

An opportunity has arisen to develop an orangutan rescue centre in West

Kalimantan. The facilities are extremely limited but, with an injection of

funds to build new enclosures, it could become a temporary holding centre

for orangutans in urgent need of rescue. International Animal Rescue’s good

relationship with the forest department means it should be able to count on

their support to get the project off the ground.

 

In the longer term, there will be many challenges to face: there is a

desperate need for protected areas of rainforest where rescued orangutans

can be released safely back into the wild. International Animal Rescue has

already secured protected status for areas of forest in Sumatra and West

Java by conducting surveys that highlight the rich biodiversity of fauna and

flora they contain. The group is determined to explore every possible avenue

to find funding to buy areas of rainforest to give displaced orangutans a

safe new home. This may be possible by using global carbon credit funds and

they have already started making contacts in this area.

 

International Animal Rescue’s position is unequivocal: the orangutans need

all the help they can get - and they need it now: the extent of their

suffering is too great and the destruction of their habitat too devastating

for IAR—or for any one of us—to ignore.

 

—International Animal Rescue

*

 

 

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