Save Orangutan

Four orangutans released in the forests of Borneo after quarantined for seven years

2016-04-22T23:45:00.009+07:00

Middle Borneo. BKSDA and BOSF (Borneo Orangutan Survival Foundation) team has released four orangutans to borneo forest after seven years being quarantined. Previously they also already had released 20 orangutans in the same place.

From 2012 until now there are 207 orangutans have been released to Borneo forest., while 468 orangutans still being rehabilitated.

Source : http://goo.gl/mRVA68

Sad. More orangutans trapped on clustered forest which are being burned down

2016-04-21T22:54:00.002+07:00

Samarinda. East Borneo - Center for Orangutan Protection (COP) the national organization who concerned about the presence of endemic species of orangutans, urgently persuade BKSDA East Kalimantan Province to take immediate action to save the orangutans which have trapped in the area of oil palm plantations in East Kutai.

"We urge BKSDA Kaltim to immediately take the necessary steps because the condition of orangutans in the fragmented forest areas are so critically endangered," said Director of COP Ramadhani from Samarinda when contacted on last Tuesday.

Ramadhani was waiting for positive response from the orangutan rescue team to release orangutans which trapped in fragmented forests by region oil palm plantations owned by PT AE in East Kutai.

COP was also regret the shortness of time checking the orangutan trapped in the area of the plantation owned by PT AE, Ramadhani said.

"From 20 to March 21, 2016, COP together with PT AE BKSDA checking on the location of the trapped orangutan. However, they only found the nest and did not found any orangutans," he said.

"Of course, two days checking time was very brief, because ideally to do the checking takes at least one or two weeks," Ramadhani said.

On 16 April 2016, COP found two orangutans, one of them is still a kid, found on an old nest and the other one was walking in the area of oil palm plantations.

"The location where two orangutans was found are in the forest areas, that are already highly fragmented. The fragmented forest is in the process of cleared and burned, so that the orangutan will be pressured because their living space is getting narrowed," he said.

"They would starve to death, killed by oil workers because they considered as pests, killed by local people because they endanger the human safety, or killed by traditional hunters to be eaten or taken her baby for sale," Ramadhani said.

Source : http://goo.gl/qIeucy

Orangutan Conservation and Indonesia Rainforest

2016-04-20T21:09:00.000+07:00

The forests of Indonesia, along with their thousands of plant and animal species, are being destroyed at an alarming rate due to massive illegal logging and clearing for palm oil plantations.

Indonesia’s tropical forests are of global importance, covering over 98 million hectares (242,163,274 acres). The rapid deterioration of tropical forests is causing incalculable losses in terms of biodiversity and is pushing species such as the orangutan ever closer to extinction.

“Twelve percent of all mammal species, 16% of reptile and amphibian species, and 17% of bird species are found on the 17,000 islands that constitute Indonesia.”

Until twelve and a half thousand years ago, orangutans were found throughout Southeast Asia ranging all the way to the island of Java and into southern China. Orangutan populations probably numbered in the hundreds of thousands, possibly millions. Today, however, the few orangutans left in the tropical rain forests of Borneo and Sumatra number less than 60,000. Approximately 7,300 are found in northern Sumatra in the Indonesian provinces of Aceh and North Sumatra while the rest are found in Borneo, in the Indonesian provinces of Kalimantan Tengah (Central Indonesian Borneo), Kalimantan Barat (West Indonesian Borneo), and Kalimantan Timur (East Indonesian Borneo) and the Malaysian states of Sabah and Sarawak in the northern third of Borneo. Kalimantan Tengah (Central Indonesian Borneo) is the orangutan capital of the world with more than 50% of all wild orangutans found there.

Most of Indonesia’s forests are found in the Indonesian half of New Guinea, and on the islands of Borneo and Sumatra. The forests of Indonesia represent 10% of the world’s remaining tropical forests. Indonesia’s forests are the second largest in the world after the forests of Brazil. Unfortunately, over the years Indonesia has lost up to 80% of its original forest habitat and continues to lose 6.2 million acres (2,509,051 hectares) a year. Indonesia entered the Guinness Book of World Records in 2008 and 2009 for having the highest rate of deforestation of any country in the world!

Indonesia is one of the five most species-rich countries in the world, with a high rate of endemic species. Twelve percent of all mammal species, 16% of reptile and amphibian species, and 17% of bird species are found on the 17,000 islands that constitute Indonesia. Of Indonesian species, 772 species are threatened or endangered, giving Indonesia the third highest number of threatened species of any country in the world. Of Indonesia’s approximately 40 primate species, 20 have lost more than half their original habitat in the last ten years; orangutans are among those species.

Illegal Logging Largely to Blame for Forest Depletion

A study done in 2000 by the Indonesia-United Kingdom Tropical Forest Management Programme concluded that 73% of logging done in Indonesia was illegal. While Indonesia’s forest ministry official harvest figures are just under 882 millioncubic feet per year, the combined log consumption capacity of plywood, sawn wood, and pulp and paper industries is 2.6 billion cubic feet per year, which means that industries obtain between one-half and two-thirds of their logs from illegal or unsustainable sources. Illegal logging produces 1.8 billion cubic feet of logs annually, resulting in state financial losses of approximately $3.37 billion. The value of timber stolen from TNTP alone is currently estimated at $8 million each year although it has been much higher in the past.

Indonesia’s Forests Are Disappearing at an Alarming Rate

Illegal loggers working in the forest in Lamandau.

Indonesia’s forests represent 10% of the world’s remaining tropical rainforests. By 2001 Indonesia had lost 99 million acres of forest during the previous 32 years, which is equivalent to the combined size of Germany and the Netherlands. The current rate of forest loss is accelerating.

Indonesia is one of the five most species-diverse countries in the world, home to 12% of all mammal species, 16% of all reptile and amphibian species, and 17% of all bird species. It also contains 33% of insect species, 24% of fungi species, and 10% of higher plant species.Tanjung Puting National Park, site of Camp Leakey, is home to more than 230 bird species, at least 17 reptile species, and 29 mammal species.

After Malaysia and the United States, Indonesia has the third highest number of threatened species with 772 species. However, Indonesia has the absolute highest number of threatened mammal species with 147 species – an increase of seven species since the year 2000. According to a recent article in the conservation journal Oryx, 1000 orangutans are lost in Sumatra each year; in Borneo, the number is probably even higher.

Increased Demand for Palm Oil Causes Conversion of Forests

“After Malaysia and the United States, Indonesia has the third highest number of threatened species with 772 species. However, Indonesia has the absolute highest number of threatened mammal species, with 147 species. ”

World demand for palm oil has increased by 32% over the last five years with the recent rapid expansion of the food and industrial manufacturing industries, growing at a rate of 7% each year. In fact, palm oil is the world’s best-selling vegetable oil, representing 40% of the total global trade in edible oils. Indonesia accounts for 31% of the world’s production of palm oil, and is expected to be responsible for 41% by 2005. The aim of the former Suharto government was to create a total of 13.5 million acres of palm oil plantations by 2000. By 1999 the figure had reached 7.4 million acres, which is nearly five times the size of Bali.

The sudden increase in palm oil use has led to the clearing of Indonesia’s tropical forests to create monoculture palm oil plantations. Studies in Malaysia and Indonesia have shown that between 80 and 100% of the species of fauna inhabiting tropical rainforests cannot survive in oil palm monocultures (Wakker 2000). In 1999, nearly 800,000 acres of forest were converted for palm oil. Global demand is expected to increase by 50% in the next five years, primarily because palm oil profits are assured by cheap labor, low-priced land, a lack of effective environmental controls, easy availability of finance and support, and a short growth cycle.

Demand for Paper Production Increases, Leading to More Logging

As much as 40% of the wood used by Indonesian pulp producers between 1995 and 1999 came from illegal sources. Massive expansion in plywood, pulp, and paper production in the last two decades has brought demand for wood fiber to exceed the legal supply by 1.2-1.4 billion cubic feet per year. Pulp and paper subsectors have expanded by nearly 700% since 1987.

Timber and Plantation Companies Burn Forests to Clear Land

Approximately 22 million acres of land were damaged by the 1997 and 1998 fires in Indonesia that were largely caused by timber and palm oil plantation companies clearing land. According to Remote Sensing Solutions GMBH, the 0.80 to 2.57 billion tons of carbon released during that time was the biggest ever measured, corresponding to 13 to 40 percent of the annual global production by burning fossil fuels like oil, coal, and gas. The estimated financial consequences of the fires were over $3 billion from losses in timber, agriculture, and non-timber products, plus the loss of hydrological and soil conservation services as well as biodiversity benefits. Haze from the fires cost an additional $1.4 billion for health treatment and lost tourism revenues.

Orangutan Foundation International (OFI) Works Towards Research, Conservation, and Education

Poachers were killing proboscis monkeys along the river en route to Camp Leakey until OFI began patrolling the area.

OFI is a nonprofit organization dedicated to the conservation of wild orangutans and their rainforest habitat. Co-founded by Dr. Biruté Mary Galdikas and a group of scientists and laypeople in 1986, OFI operates Camp Leakey, an orangutan research area within Tanjung Puting National Park. OFI also runs the Orangutan Care Center and Quarantine facility in Pangkalan Bun, which is home to 330 displaced orphan orangutans, and co-manages the Lamandau Reserve, where rehabilitated orangutans are released into the wild. Through its field programs, OFI also provides employment for over 200 local Indonesians in the vicinity of Tanjung Puting National Park and Lamandau Reserve. OFI partners with Boston-based World Education to empower farmers in the local villages around TPNP, raise their crop yields, and provide alternative employment in the agricultural and agroforestry sectors. The goal is to build a “social fence” around the Park that local people will not breach.

Leonardo DiCaprio visited orangutans and elephants in Aceh Gunung Leuser National Park

2016-04-20T20:36:00.002+07:00

Leonardo DiCaprio visited Mount Leuser National Park in Aceh on Sunday, March 27, 2016. The Hollywood actor known for his role as Jack Dawson in Titanic has traveled to the conservation center with his fellow actors, Adrien Brody and Fisher Stevens, and some other crews.

The trio flew to Gunung Leuser directly from Singapore to check out the wildlife around Ketambe Research Station . While meeting with researchers Leo and his buddies got to hang out with elephants, orangutans and other endangered species that live inside the protected park lands. According to the official Gunung Leuser website, Leo spent nearly two hours watching the orangutans.

Picture: Balai Besar Taman Nasional Gunung Leuser

DiCaprio and crew also got a warm welcome from local residents, including students from the local elementary school in Ketambe.

Leonardo DiCaprio visiting the elephants and conservationists at Gunung Leuser National Park in Aceh last Sunday. Photo: Instagram / @leonardodicaprio

A well-known environmental activist, DiCaprio has taken up the cause of protecting Aceh’s natural resources, which are threatened by deforestation and palm oil production. In the tweet above, he linked to a Change.org petition, titled “Save The Leuser Ecosystem, Save Our Planet!”, addressed to President Joko Widodo and asking him to cancel a spatial plan which would put the area’s the North Aceh ecosystem in jeopardy.

Through the Leonardo DiCaprio Foundation, the actor actively supports conservation activities worldwide. In Indonesia, the foundation is supporting conservation efforts in Bukit Tigapuluh National Park and the forests of Aceh.

DiCaprio also recently reposted this Greenpeace photo on Instagram highlighting the destruction of rainforests in Sumatra for palm oil production.

The Leuser ecosystem is last place on earth where orangutans, rhinos, tigers and elephants still live together in the wild, and it is currently being threatened by Palm Oil agricultural destruction.

“As the forests of Indonesia’s Leuser Ecosystem continue to be cleared to meet demand for Palm Oil, the critically endangered Sumatran orangutan is being pushed to the brink of extinction. At the Sumatran Orangutan Conservation Programme (SOCP)’s Orangutan Quarantine Center, rescued orangutans are rehabilitated so they can be released back into the wild,” the 41-year-old Oscar winner wrote on his Facebook, along with a link of how to help the species.

Source : http://goo.gl/hX4nis

Sad event when baby orangutan realizes her mom is gone

2016-04-19T21:56:00.000+07:00

The International Animal Rescue released the above video of baby Joss on Jan. 20. Joss is an orangutan who was kept as a pet in Borneo and IAR vets believe she saw her mother killed before she was taken captive. In the video, Joss wraps her arms around herself and bangs her little head against the wall and floor as what the vets also believe is a coping mechanism for dealing with her traumatic past.

According to the International Business Times, the family who had Joss bought her for the equivalent of $36 and was likely treated similarly to a teddy bear (squeezed and carried around) by the children in the home. The family who kept her allegedly did not know having an orangutan as a pet is illegal.

Jaclyn Eng, a vet with the IAR, told the IBT she and her team had never seen "such a young baby orangutan exhibiting stereotypical behavior like this. It is extremely distressing to watch because it must reflect the mental and emotional trauma little Joss is suffering."

Vets are working with Joss to ensure she recovers emotionally from her trauma but are unsure if and when it will happen. You can donate the International Animal Rescue so it can continue rescues like these here.

Source : http://goo.gl/dROGVW

Orangutan Behavior

2016-04-19T19:29:00.000+07:00

Orangutan Behavior

Life History

Orangutans have the slowest known life histories of any mammal. They take the longest time to grow up and they are the slowest to reproduce. The female orangutan’s menstrual cycle is 29 to 32 days, with menstruation lasting three to four days. The gestation period is approximately eight and a half months. Usually a single offspring is born, weighing about 3 ½ pounds. Twinning occurs but is rare. (In forty years of observation, twins were only seen once at Tanjung Puting National Park. The mother was an older, free-ranging, wild born ex-captive orangutan . One of the twins was born weak and died shortly after birth.) Wild female orangutans usually become sexually active at approximately 12 years, but they will often have their first offspring only at 15-16 years of age. At Tanjung Puting wild females give birth on average every 7.7 years.

Infant orangutans stay in close contact with their mothers for a long time. For the first two years of a young orangutan’s life, he or she is completely dependent on mother for food and transportation. A baby orangutan clings to his/her mother’s stomach, side, or back while she moves through the trees, and feeds on his/her mother’s breast milk.

They also use leafy branches to shelter themselves from rain and sun, and sometimes even drape large leaves over themselves like a poncho.”

Orangutan offspring will sometimes be carried until they are 5 years old and be breast-fed until they are 8 years of age! Even when young orangutans are too old to be carried and fed by their mother, they may still remain close to her, traveling with her, eating, and resting in the same trees, until they are about 10 years old. Once they become independent, they will be alone or in the company of other immature orangutans. In the case of females, they frequently return to their mothers to “visit” until they are about 15-16 years old. Studies indicate that Bornean orangutans may“grow up” faster than Sumatran orangutans and may become independent from their mothers at an earlier age.

Orangutan in the trees

Such prolonged association between mother and offspring is rare among mammals. Probably only humans have a more intensive relationship with their mothers. Primatologists believe that orangutans have such long “childhoods” because there is so much that they need to learn before they can live alone successfully. Young orangutans learn almost everything from their mothers, including: where to find food, what to eat and how to eat it (sometimes this involves using special tools), and how to build a proper sleeping nest. Also, mothers probably protect young orangutans from predators such as clouded leopards and pythons in Borneo, and tigers in Sumatra.

Male orangutans exhibit a curious and little-understood case of “bimaturism,” also referred to as “arrested development.” This means that there are two “types” of mature male orangutans: flanged and unflanged males. A flanged male has big cheek pads on the sides of his face and a large pendulous throat sack under his chin. An unflanged male has neither of these traits, and his body is usually smaller. Unflanged males are sexually mature and fully able to father offspring; females, however, seem to prefer to mate with the flanged males. Because of this, unflanged males often resort to “forceful copulation” in order to attain matings. Meanwhile, flanged males emit loud booming “long calls’, presumably to attract receptive females as well as to let other males know their whereabouts. It is not fully understood exactly when and why a mature male undergoes the transformation from unflanged to flanged, or even if every male undergoes this transformation (although it seems likely that he does eventually). It has been hypothesized that the existence of a dominant flanged male within the sensory range of an unflanged male inhibits the unflanged male’s development (by stimulating release of special hormones?). Thus, not until the dominant flanged male dies, moves away, or is defeated, or the subadult male himself moves away or stays low, can the unflanged male develop his cheek pads and large size.

Social Organization

Orangutans are semi-solitary species but remain, to some degree, somewhat social. Flanged adult male orangutans are the most solitary of all orangutan age/sex classes. Their participation in social groups is usually limited to temporary sexual “consortships” with adult and adolescent females. Wild orangutan fathers play no direct role in the upbringing of their offspring. Non-receptive adult females associate with their young, with other adult females, and with adolescents who are not necessarily their own and generally avoid mature males. The mother-young relationship lasts for many years, whereas the time spent with other orangutans is relatively short. Subadult males usually associate with females, particularly with adolescents, but are not generally aggressive towards other males. Adolescent females travel together, especially when age differences are minimal. This semi-solitary social system may have evolved as a result of a ripe fruit diet, scattered food distribution, and a lack of large arboreal predators. (Tigers in Sumatra are terrestrial).

Male-male competition for access to sexually receptive females is a major factor in orangutan adaptation. Flanged adult males use their pendulous laryngeal sacs as a resonating chamber for the “long call,” parts of which sound like a loud roar. Sometimes the sound of a long call can carry for almost a mile. The male orangutan’s long call seems to play an important role in repelling male rivals and advertising availability to sexually receptive females. Adult male orangutans are intolerant of each other, and the encounter between two flanged adult males usually results in either aggression or avoidance. Combats almost always take place when two cheekpadded males are in the presence of a sexually receptive female. These combats may last for a few minutes (especially if the two males have fought before) or an hour or more. Males may be severely wounded during these combats. Almost all flanged males exhibit injuries as a result, whether it is missing and/or stiff fingers or toes, healed scars on their faces or heads, missing eyes or the like. Orangutan females rarely exhibit violent aggression of the sort seen in combat, and hence do not sustain such injuries.

Life in the trees

Orangutans are the largest arboreal animal on the planet. Most of their lives are spent in trees where orangutans travel from branch to branch by climbing, clambering, and brachiating. Diurnal animals, orangutans spend a large portion (60% by time at Tanjung Puting) of daylight hours foraging for food. Since over 90% of the food orangutans eat is found in the canopy, their arboreal existence is not surprising.

male borneo orangutan

Although mostly arboreal, males in Borneo occasionally travel on the ground to move between stands of trees. At Tanjung Puting adult males have traveled over two miles on the ground during the course of a day. While females stay near their mothers’ home ranges during the course of their lifetimes, males may migrate long distances away from their mother’s home range.

Nest Building

Almost every night orangutans construct a new sleeping nest from branches, usually 15 to 100 feet up in a tree. Sometimes orangutans will make a mid-day nest for napping. Occasionally, they will also reuse an old nest, adding new branches.

Cultures

Not long ago many people thought culture was unique to the human species. However, in recent years scientists have found increasing evidence of socially learned traditions elsewhere in the animal kingdom. In 2003 a group of researchers, including Dr. Carel van Schaik and OFI’s president, Dr. Biruté Mary Galdikas, described two dozen behaviors that are present in some orangutan populations and absent in others. According to the report which appeared in the journal Science, these practices are learned from other group members and passed down through the generations. In parts of Borneo, for example, orangutans use handfuls of leaves as napkins to wipe their chins while orangutans in parts of Sumatra use leaves as gloves, helping them handle spiny fruits and branches, or as seat cushions in spiny trees.

Tool Use

Orangutans have high cognitive abilities comparable to the other great apes. This high level of intelligence manifests itself in tool-use and even the making of simple tools in the wild. Some tool use is idiosyncratic but other kinds of tool use represent cultural traditions in orangutan populations.

Orangutans have been observed making simple tools to scratch themselves. They also use leafy branches to shelter themselves from rain and sun, and sometimes even drape large leaves over themselves like a poncho. They have also been observed using branches as tools during insect foraging, honey collection, and protection against stinging insects, and to “fish” for branches or fruit that is out of reach. In Sumatra wild orangutans use tools to extract seeds from a hard shelled species of fruit. In captivity an orangutan was taught to chip a stone handaxe.

What is orangutan?

2016-04-19T19:02:00.000+07:00

Orangutan Trivia & Facts

orangutan

In Malay orang means “person” and utan is derived from hutan, which means “forest.” Thus, orangutan literally means “person of the forest.”
Orangutans’ arms stretch out longer than their bodies – up to 8 ft. from fingertip to fingertip in the case of very large males.
When on the ground, orangutans walk on all fours, using their palms or fists. Unlike the African apes, orangutans are not morphologically built to be knuckle-walkers.
When males are fighting, they charge each other, grapple, and bite each other’s heads and cheekpads. They sometimes look like Sumo wrestlers.
From the age of thirteen years (usually in captivity) past the age of thirty, males may develop flanges and large size.
For the first few years of his/her life, a young orangutan holds tight to his/her mother’s body as she moves through the forest canopy.
Orangutans have tremendous strength, which enables them to brachiate and hang upside-down from branches for long periods of time to retrieve fruit and eat young leaves.
Like humans, orangutans have opposible thumbs. Their big toes are also opposible. Unlike humans, approximately one third of all orangutans do not have nails on their big toes.
Although in the wild, females usually give birth to their first offspring when they are 15-16 years of age, in captivity females as young as eight years old have given birth. Likewise male orangutans in captivity as young as eight years old have fathered offspring.
Bornean and Sumatran orangutans can breed together in captivity, producing viable offspring. So many Bornean/Sumatran crosses were once present in American zoos (before such breeding was banned) that there were more crosses in captivity than “pure” Bornean orangutans.