Orangutans

Since I am here in Bali volunteering with the Sumatra Orangutan Society, I want to give you a sense of what they are up against and why conservation measures are drastically needed if they are to survive. Orangutans are struggling to keep their habitat. Pitted against man's short-sighted consumption of resources in exchange for money, their habitat disappears daily. What's new, eh? So who is after their habitat anyway?
1. illegal logging - somehow this wood is making it out of Indonesia and sold to Eastern and Western markets 'legally' They couldn't do that if we didn't accept it. This process must change
2. Oil Palm Plantations - now this was a huge surprise to me. We buy thousands of products with palm oil --lipstick, soap, perfume, chocolate, bread, cake, and sometimes it is called sodium palmate or sodium lauryl sulfate or sodium palmitate just to make it tough to find. Thousands of products have the stuff. And the newest use in biofuels. It is possible to have sustainable oil palm plantations and the UK is working on making it a requirement. How's about my country doing something? It's not just orangutans here...tigers, monkeys, elehpants birds and our air are at risk.
3. the Pet trade - as the jungle comes down, it becomes easier to hunt for babies that are sold illegally for big money. Yea, the moms must be killed to steal a baby.

So with all of that going against them no wonder they are critically endangered. We have options but it involves being conscious about what we buy and structuring laws that protect the environment.
Money and greed seem to always win first place. While here I'll be working on what can be done to turn the corner before it's too late for these sweet orangutans. I thought I would include stories now and then from a wonderful book, ‘the orangutans’ by Kaplan and Rogers. I'll get some from Lucy our founder who as a former trapeze artist used to teach young orphan orangs to swing through trees! You will get a sense over time about one of our closest relatives --we share 96.4% of our DNA with these rascals. So read about our family....get inspired to help. This first one is about an orangutan who had been illegally taken in the pet trade and then was brought to the rehab center to see about returning her to the wild......
“Living in a rainforest is not always a possibility for orangutans that have been reared by humans. We learned this from Judy, an orangutan at Sepilok Orangutan Rehabilitation Centre in Sebah.
Judy came to the sanctuary of the rehabilitation center after being rescued from a life in captivity with humans. When we met her, she was five years old. She was particularly lacking in hair, which made her look more like a naked human than her fellow orangutans. It comes as something of a shock to see a member of a species that can look so humanlike also behave like a human. For instance, Judy often walked upright, with feet slightly splayed and her tiny buttocks pinched in. her entire body posture, her arm movements, and then way she turned her head and looked at things at times made it difficult to think of her as an orangutan. But her behavior is perhaps not all that surprising. Judy had lived all her early life with humans. We do not know when she was caught from the wild, but since she was only five years old when she joined the rehab center, it is a fair guess that most of her crucial childhood years were spent in the care of humans. Humans had been her teachers and her carers and she had learned her lesson well, perhaps too well. It is impossible to tell whether Judy had made up her own mind to walk upright like humans or whether she had been encouraged to so so.
Judy did not appear to us or the rehab staff to be a good prospect for rehab back to the wild. Added to this she seemed to prefer to be around humans even more than among orangutans, or even more naturally, on her own. At times she would play with sticks and other object next to humans, always looking to see whether they were watching, just as children do.
Despite her strong attachment to humans, she had to go through the rehabilitation program at the center. This meant that after a period of adjustment to the forest around the research station, she had to be taken on a long walk deep into the center of the reserve and left there. Most orangutans who had previous experience of living in the wild will be in no hurry to return to the station. On first release, some make their way back of the research station, taking several days to do so. In time, however they return less and less often and finally do not come back.
It was different for Judy. When she was taken out in to the forest, she merely gave the carer a head start and turned up at the station a little after she had returned. The procedure was repeated several times, but Judy chose not to get the message. She made her way back to human company each time and apparently was distressed by the experience of being left behind. We know of four occasions of her failed release. Imagine a juvenile or teenage orangutan being unhappy at being left in the forest of her birth and origin! And note that Judy did not get back to the station by swinging from branch to branch or walking on all fours through the jungle. No Judy walked upright on the paved path through the forest to the research station. “Ladylike” this may have been, but it was a rather poor performance for an orangutan.
On the fourth and last attempt by the staff at the research station, Judy came up with a novel idea. She decided to take a shortcut back. From the release point, she found a back route out of the forest to a roadside and a bus stop. Taking a seat at the bus stop, she waited along until the local bus appeared. It was on its way to the research station and had a number of passengers, although the front seats were empty. The bus stopped and the driver opened the door. The bus driver was kind. He had no particular prejudice against orangutans and understood her intention to board the bus. He did not insist on the normal bus fare. So Judy did not have the long walk back. She got on the bus and without the slightest hesitation or sign of insecurity took the seat behind the driver. There she sat calmly as the bus made its way to the research station. When it arrived and the door was opened, she alighted heading straight for the research station. The staff said that she expressed much pleasure at meeting her human friends again."