International Animal Rescue: May update from Ketapang

Brave volunteers encourage the
babies to leave the safety of the ground

by Christine Nelson

May has brought some slightly drier weather and a (temporary) respite from rescues. This has allowed us to quickly build up some vital infrastructure on the grounds of the Sungai Awan centre. Essentials like newly routed plumbing, and on-site tools like a generator, incinerator, and internet access will help the daily activities of the center run more smoothly. 

The Great Orangutan Project volunteers have been busy making boardwalks for better access to the forest, as well as some more permanent enrichment fixtures to promote foraging behavior in our babies and juveniles. Some of the staff even received training in tree climbing so we can encourage the youngsters to hang out more where they belong...in the trees!

Gembar is out of quarantine and is just starting out with the little ones in baby school. Noel and Tribune are quite taken with her and her long, flowing hair. If all goes well there and she has the skills and confidence needed to graduate, she will likely be moved to the forest group soon.

Mac and Ujang out in the forest

Melky is by far the biggest juvenile in the forest group and can be found by following the cracking sound of the small trees he uses for travelling. Although he is quite a muscular boy, he is very gentle with the youngest ones and even look after them during rainstorms.

Butan and Marcela are “regulars” when it comes to sleeping in the forest at night, but they have occasionally been joined by Roy, Bandut, Puyol, Sigit, Galang, Laksmi, Mac, and even little Pedro, which bodes very well for their chances of being released back into the wild.

International Animal Rescue: Treat Time for the Macaques

by biologist and M.Sc student Wendy Gomez, in Ciapus

Here in Ciapus we have been experimenting with different treats for our rescued macaques. Just as with humans, animals have favourite foods and given a choice, will make a beeline for their favourite snacks!

Marko crafts seed bags for the macaques

Most macaques here prefer to eat papaya, boiled eggs and guava fruit rather than carrots or apples. However, one type of food that drives them crazy (and I mean crazy!) is seeds: sunflower, corn and rice. Whenever we put seeds in any of the enrichment devices (see previous post), the animals immediately target these delicious seeds before eating anything else. So I was very much looking forward to seeing their reaction when the keepers gave them the special treat bags they had made – small bags filled with honey or syrup coated seeds!

This sugary treat is a weekly ritual here at the centre, and is part of the enrichment program. I had not seen it before, but my previous encounter with capuchin monkeys (neotropical primates I worked with before coming to Ciapus) had shown me how much they love it. They would grab as much as they could in their hands, stuffing some in their mouths and even in their armpits and run away from the other monkeys! I was looking forward to seeing what crafty strategies the macaques would come up with! 

Macaques have “cheek pouches”, which allow them to store huge amount of food in their cheeks (they extend into their necks!) but I have never seen them being used to the degree they used them for storing these seeds. In fact, I was so astonished that I did some further research, and discovered that these pouches can extend to the size of their stomachs! So no clever strategy required for the macaques – just stuff as much as possible into the cheek pouches!

Sheer delight!

Watching these macaques was like watching a bunch of kids in a room full of goodie bags. After taking the first bag, they couldn’t stop looking for another, and after taking 2 or 3 (each day they’re given an exact amount of food to meet their nutritional requirements, so the amount of bags per group of macaques is also limited), they would just find a place to start the hard work of opening the bags and the process of filling up their pouches.

It was a very nice thing to see. I would say that was very close to pure happiness for the animals, and I just couldn’t stop smiling.  There are definitely no words to describe the feeling you get when you see these animals enjoying things (and on their way to freedom!) after the suffering many of them have endured in the illegal wildlife trade.

Keeping a close eye on his friend!

That was a very cool day for me (and I’m sure it was a very nice day for the macaques as well!) and I thankfully had my camera with me so I could get some shots of the events! Hope you enjoy!

International Animal Rescue: Three more lives saved

by Christine Nelson

The International Animal Rescue team in Indonesia has been under a lot of pressure with several urgent rescues coming hot on the heels of the well publicised translocations of four orangutans, stranded and starving in devastated forest.

The team was called to help help an orangutan who was getting dangerously close to humans due to habitat loss.  The rescue team traveled to Sukamaju, which is only about 30 minutes from the centre, and was able to capture the large but thin male.  After a short time of stabilisation, he was then translocated to a larger area of forest where our field team has reported seeing him again, but with a healthier body condition.

Sukma is wary but coping well with her new situation

The next week, two more  babies came under the team’s care.  The first, named Sukma, is more wild in nature and had been taken in by a man after he found her on a rambutan (fruit) plantation near a palm oil plantation.  She is about 4 years old and was too much for the man to handle, so IAR was called in.  There is no indication of what happened to her mother.  She remains very cautious of humans, but is doing fine in quarantine. 

Hopefully Gembar will soon be able
to join the other babies in the
forest enclosure

Gembar is the name of the second baby, aged about two and a half to three years old. She had been in the care of a family for one year.  They were out fishing one day and found her after she had supposedly been left by her mother – something we know to be very unlikely.  She had been receiving weekly baths, and was let out of her cage to play once a week as well.  Her diet was lacking in fruits and vegetables, and consisted mostly of milk, rice, and fish.  She is adjusting well and awaiting further medical checks.

The work carried by our project teams in the field is nothing short of heroic, and we are frequently amazed and awed by the lengths they go to protecting and rescuing orangutans, often putting themselves in tremendous danger themselves. Please show them your support!

Spring update from International Animal Rescue

by vet Christine Nelson

Spring has sprung in Sungai Awan, and all the babies and juveniles have now arrived at their new forest home and are ready to take part in the rehabilitation process.

New arrivals Tribun and Onyo have both graduated from quarantine and are finding their place within the small baby group. Amin has also gained medical clearance, and he is learning the routine fast and making new friends in the forest clan.

Onyo is settling down with his new friends in the
baby group, and practices climbing trees each day

Even though the location is new, the population density of orangutans is unnaturally high, and the their mischievous and destructive play behavior is taking its toll on the trees. Saving more forested land for future use is still a priority for the further development of these young animals. As their individual skills are revealed, groups are being formed to encourage the rest to learn from those who are more ‘forest savvy’. Some clever orangutans are even making decent nests and choosing to spend the occasional night in the forest. The team is working hard to keep order, although some orangutans seem to want to follow a schedule of their own...!

The team is also creating new protocols to ensure the health, safety, and happiness of all the animals and workers. We have also started to implant radio-tracking transmitters in some of the orangutans we release back into the wild, so that in the future we can follow these orangutans closely and learn from their trials and successes in the field.

Creating enrichment for macaques

by biologist and M.Sc student Wendy Gomez, in Ciapus

Being able to do my dissertation project on macaques at the International Animal Rescue centre in Ciapus, Indonesia has certainly been a privilege, not only because it is a great opportunity to grow academically and professionally, but mainly because it has given me the chance to appreciate the magnificence of these animals while I help their rehabilitation process.

 

One of our rescued macaques has a snack

When it comes to any reintroduction programme, it is fundamental to assure the animals’ ability to obtain food in the wild since it is one of the main challenges they will all have to overcome in order to survive and thrive after release.

Now, taking into consideration that most of these macaques come from the pet trade and have spent years in captivity (either as pets, street beggars or performers), it is very important to make sure they know how to forage for food in their own habitat - which is very different from finding food in a plate or in a human hand - so they don’t starve to death once they’re released. For this, the keepers at the centre are always trying to come up with creative ways to present the food, using puzzle feeders and feeding devices (made of natural materials such as bamboo branches and other trees) so the amount of time spent by the animals in foraging activities increases, and their foraging skills improve.

Adding the secret ingredients

As part of my project and after talking with the keepers, we decided to make a foraging box to give the animals a small representation of what they would find in the wild. Since macaques spend some time foraging on the ground, and besides fruit they also eat insects, leaves and small vertebrates, we thought we could put some of these “ingredients” together in the box, in a way that resembled the natural appearance of their habitat: some soil covered with a thick layer of foliage, branches and rocks that they would have to manipulate to find the fruit and the insects.

Once the first box was made, we put the soil, rocks, insects, seeds, leaves and small pieces of fruit inside, put one box in a cage and then waited for the animals’ reactions...

Even though I really wanted the box to work (that would mean seeing the animals forage for at least more than a few minutes on it), I was somehow expecting them to break the box or just take everything out in a second. However, they were carefully moving and manipulating the branches, leaves and rocks to find the crickets, worms and pieces of fruit that were hidden inside. The box was big enough to let 3 macaques use it, and they didn't forage for a few minutes, but for more than 2 hours! :)

This not only gave us a clue that we were on the right direction with this new enrichment and it’s something we might be able to use in the long term, but it also showed me that I was underestimating the intelligence and abilities of these animals.

So, we are still working on some improvements for this box to see if we can increase the amount of time the animals use it, but we are excited to know we had a good start with this idea and we are looking forward to testing the new version and see if we can use it with other groups of macaques!

The foraging box certainly went down well with the residents!

International Animal Rescue's Primate Diaries: Dramatic rescues

Four more are safe...

...For now.

This mother tried to hide up the only remaining tree. The
team searched desperately for her baby but without success 

International Animal Rescue and the local foresty department (BKSDA) in Ketapang received reports of several orangutans trapped in the fragmented areas of forest near a palm oil plantation in Tanah Merah, which is about 3 hours by car from the new rescue and rehabilitation centre in Sungai Awan. With their forest home destroyed, the animals scattered and began to wander the area in search of food and a new place to live. The palm oil company asked for help to move the orangutans, who had become a nuisance because they were eating the young fruits from the palm oil trees.  A collection of forestry department workers, assisted by individuals from IAR, had already begun conducting environmental surveys in the bordering forest to find an appropriate place to relocate the orangutans. They found evidence that the orangutans were eating bark and stems, as there was little fruit and few leaves available.

Our team worked fast on a general health check while
the animals were sedated

In the third week of March, the rest of the IAR/BKSDA team arrived to see the desolate and depressing landscape, which is the product of the destruction of the forest within the borders of the plantation. Workers from the palm oil company helped the team to locate the individuals in need of rescue. The first was an adult female who had been spotted with a baby. When the rescue team arrived, the baby could not be found, and it is suspected that it was taken to be kept as a pet, sold to the highest bidder, or worse. The mother, who was still lactating, scrambled high into a single bare tree, so there was no good way to sedate her at that time. The group waited for her to come down and followed her across the apocalyptic terrain before she was safely captured.  

This orangutan and her baby were starving to death due to
deforestation. 

A second female was caught while traveling along the ground, and she was found to be pregnant. It was already dark when she recovered from the sedative, but she had to be released that night as she was very stressed in the transport cage.

The last two to be moved came together as a mother-baby pair, which complicated the darting process because the baby was clinging tightly to her mother’s back the entire time.  Both were very thin, but the mother handled the drugs well, and the baby silently watched while still clinging on.

The baby clung tightly to his mother throughout the entire
process

Heavy rain fell on the team and the animals during the transfer, but everyone made it safely to the forest at the border of the plantation. The future remains questionable for all in the forest, and saving the land from further industrial use is of utmost importance for the orangutans.

Watch the video of the dramatic rescues.

International Animal Rescue: Good news from the slow loris team

Good news from the Salak Mountain slow loris monitoring programme

By vet Wendi Prameswari

Arjuna has his tracking collar changed

On 30 March, Arjuna, a released male Javan slow loris, was caught by the monitoring team because his collar was due to be changed. Arjuna had survived seven months in the forests of Mount Salak, displaying extensive ranging and active behaviours. The medical team went too in order to give him a health check whilst the collar was being replaced. Arjuna was found to be in good condition with a body weight of 840 grams. His body weight had dropped slightly since he was first released, but this is always expected owing to the increase in foraging and travelling requirements once back in the wild. A new collar was fitted and monitoring will now continue for another six months until he has successfully survived across the two seasons (wet and dry).

Arjuna poses for the camera beautifully before his
release back into his jungle home

There are close to 100 slow lorises at our rescue centre in Ciapus, Java – all victims of the illegal wildlife trade which in recent years has been fuelled by YouTube videos depicting them as cute, cuddly pets. Eighty per cent of the rescued lorises have had their teeth cut out by the pet traders before they are sold – a cruel and painful practice which frequently leads to infection, septicaemia and death.

Our team in Ciapus continues to investigate whether slow lorises that have lost their teeth can still survive and fend for themselves in the wild.