Guest guest Posted August 23, 2004 Report Share Posted August 23, 2004 Report on the visit of the Indonesian team to Thailand, July 28-30, 2004 A team consisting of officials of the Indonesian Ministry of Forestry, including the directors for biodiversity conservation and forest protection and the director of the Indonesian CITES authority, the Borneo Orangutan Survival Foundation (BOS), the network for Indonesian Animal Rescue Centers, Profauna and journalists paid an official visit to Bangkok to discuss the problem of the presence of large numbers of orangutans that most likely are held illegally in Thailand. In Bangkok the team was joined by representatives of the Indonesian embassy in Bangkok and the Thailand BOS representative Edwin Wiek of the Wildlife Friends of Thailand animal rescue center. The reason for the visit was the presence of very many orangutans, of suspected Indonesian wild origins, in many places in Thailand, but most notably so in a Bangkok Zoo named Safari World. Indonesia was first alerted to this problem after reports from Monkey World’s investigation by Jim and Alison Cronin surfaced. This set off a legal investigation during which the Thai Forestry Police found 115 orangutans on the premises of Safari World under cramped conditions. Then, after nothing seemed to happen after several months, Edwin Wiek contacted BOS Indonesia and Dr. Willie Smits of BOS Indonesia, with support of the Indonesian Ministry of Forestry went to Thailand to see the actual situation. After some initial problems Dr. Smits was able to see the orangutans and his report to the director of CITES led to the official request of the Indonesian Ministry of Forestry to deal with the situation and this official visit to Thailand of the Indonesian delegation. After the team was met at the airport by representatives of the Indonesian embassy and Edwin Wiek, the BOS Thailand representative, a visit was paid to the department of Natural Resources and the Forestry police. Albeit the team came under an official invitation by Mr. Somchai Pienstaporn, the General for National Park, Wildlife and Plant Conservation Department, there was nobody there to be met at the departments’ offices. Initially there were a lot of journalists waiting to see the delegation but they suddenly left for it was said that a raid was underway in Safari World. This turned out to be a hoax, the opposite taking place there with a visit by a Minister promoting the boxing show, accompanied by the Director General the team was to visit. The delegation was not able to obtain certainty about the availability of the Director General the next day either from the staff at the Directorate General. General Swake Pinsinchai, who did the original investigation and discovered the 115 orangutans, was available and received the delegation and discussions were held about setting up a joint task force to deal with the rampant illegal wildlife trade in South East Asia. He also proposed to hold a press conference the next day on this subject. After the meeting with general Swake, Drs. Widodo Ramono of the Ministry of Forestry, Dr. Willie Smits of BOS and Edwin Wiek as Indonesian local representative in Thailand, visited the Ministry of Natural Resources and after consultations were held with the Minister the delegation was promised that the next day the director general would for sure be available himself at 15.00 hours. Then the delegation moved on for a meeting at the Indonesian Embassy in Bangkok before checking into the hotel. On Thursday morning the team held a preparatory meeting in the hotel with delegates of the Indonesian Embassy to discuss the strategy before going to the press conference. The press conference was very well attended and there were many questions that had more to do with the Safari World orangutans then the joint task force. Some members of the Thai parliament were present and complained that the situation had not been dealt with properly and also asked questions why the centre run by Edwin Wiek, had been raided just before the visit of the Indonesian delegation? Was it because Edwin was helping BOS Indonesia that this timing was set up in this way? Mr. Widodo explained that the delegation was here to offer support for a joint investigation into the Safari World orangutans and offered technical assistance with the identification of the orangutans and announced that BOS had already for some time now, made funds available for the DNA testing of those orangutans in order to prove their origin and the blood relationships amongst those orangutans. This should prove beyond any doubt the origins of those orangutans if this is considered necessary by the Thai authorities. The delegation also explained that the doubts raised whether it was technically possible to proof the origin of the orangutans in Safari World were unfounded and that with the reference material available in Indonesia it could be established with certainty. Also the claim by some officials that this testing could not take place in Bangkok was unfounded because BOS had already contacted Katsaert University that had the staff, expertise and facilities to do the testing and had already expressed their willingness to do the testing. Mr. Widodo expressed the explicit wish of Indonesia to have the orangutans returned to the country of origin in accordance with CITES regulations. He also reported that the Ministry of Forestry as the CITES authority in Indonesia had already brought an official import permit for the orangutans which he showed. He also suggested the set up of a special task force to deal with the enormous wild animal smuggling problem in the region of Southeast Asia and that amongst others we needed a number of wildlife crime labs to support this task force. He also asked if it was possible for the Indonesian delegation to visit the orangutans in Safari World which was agreed upon by general Swake. In the afternoon the delegation revisited the directorate general for National Parks Wildlife and Plant Conservation Department and eventually met Dr. Schwann Tunhikorn because the DG himself was still in an important budget meeting. Thai officials again posed technical questions about how to identify the orangutans and other technical issues, all of which were answered by the delegation. The delegation was told that it was not possible for the DG to issue CITES permits yet for the orangutans because they had not yet been officially confiscated. It would also not be possible to take hair samples of the orangutans in Safari World for these would also need CITES permits. There was no reaction when asked about the orangutans in the Lopburi Zoo and the Kao Prathapchang Center. The outcome of this meeting was therefore rather unclear besides a general support for the idea of the joint task force. That evening the delegation had a dinner and meeting with the vice ambassador of Indonesia in Bangkok during which opportunity a wide range of nature conservation issues and cooperation was discussed and the vice ambassador gave his full support to solve the issue of the orangutans in Thailand in all diplomatic ways possible. The next day the delegation went back to general Swake of the forestry police and then moved on to Safari World where all entered the facilities together with the general and much police and press. The delegation was shown the orangutans in Safari World and a press conference was held. During this visit a joint inventory was made between representatives of the Indonesian delegation and the forestry police. It was learned that of the 115 orangutans that were registered by the forestry police in November 2003, only 69 remained! A few days later it was claimed that five other orangutans were taken from some unknown location outside Safari World and added to the 69. Later this story was changed to those five having died. Still later on July 31st, the people of Safari World claimed that a hugely contagious pneumonia epidemic killed off some 41 orangutans in a very short time, obviously an epidemic more deadly than SARS, while they still continued shows with orangutans being mixed with all the others! However on August 13th all of sudden 36 orangutans showed up some of them with 7 together in small cages behind the boxing show discovered by the forestry police that had been tipped off about an orangutan transport. Then on August 19th it was claimed that three more orangutans had died. On April 10th before the zoo claimed to Dr. Smits that a female orangutan had died that day while giving birth and that for that reason admission was refused at that time (notwithstanding the fact that orangutans were kept in different localities at the zoo). Mr. Pin reported that it was all a “misunderstanding”. Confusing is also that so many different numbers are used all the time, but on November 22nd, 2003 the forestry police did encounter originally 115 orangutans with 101 young ones amongst them. After the joint operation in Safari World the delegation returned to the airport and went back to Indonesia. There is no certainty yet that the Safari World orangutans (and many others) will be returned, but general Swake expressed his sincere wish to have them returned to Indonesia as soon as possible. He also had the boxing show closed immediately. The Indonesian Ministry of Forestry, through Drs. Widodo, director of CITES has invited the Thai Forestry police to visit Indonesia for some training on how to identify the individual orangutans from photographic records from the original first raid and to see how the Indonesian Ministry of Forestry will reintroduce the orangutans to the wild through the official cooperation with the Borneo Orangutan Survival Foundation. A letter is being sent by the Indonesian Minister of Forestry to his colleague the Minister of Foreign Affairs (In the mean time Monkey World and BOS have set up a fund to raise support to return the smuggled orangutans in south East Asia back to their forests and Monkey World has already donated the first 100.000 Pounds for this fund, which was acknowledged with gratitude by the Indonesian Ministry of Forestry). Beneath details will be reported on the condition of the orangutans as reported by Dr. Willie Smits of the Borneo Orangutan Survival Foundation and Dr Faustina from the CITES Bureau under the Indonesian Ministry of Forestry. They both assisted the Thai forestry police during the checking of all the orangutans claimed to be present in Safari World at the time of checking. Findings with regard to the orangutans in Safari World A total of only 69 out of 115 orangutans were encountered. There were two locations with orangutans in the zoo, the first one was the same one as described by Dr. Willie Smits in his April report but it turned out that inside the kitchen building many more primates were locked in tiny cages, including young chimpanzees, that had not been shown during the first visit despite at that time claims by Safari World that they had shown everything there was to be seen. Then it turned out that indeed the area to the left of the orangutan boxing show held many less favourable cages with another 21 orangutans in them. As before the owner of Safari World still claimed that they had been breeding the orangutans there and had already done this for more than 20 years. He also mentioned that they had 7 births every year. Here we will analyze these statements in the light of the evidence collected. First of all in 1989 and probably even later there were NO orangutans in Safari World so the claim of 20 years of breeding is not true. Also the statement that the boxing show has been going on for 20 years is not true. There were 48 female orangutans present compared to 21 male orangutans, or 70% females and only 30% males. There is no way that this sex ratio can be explained from whatever begin situation through natural births. In the trade it is actually the opposite that slightly more males are sold then females that tend to have a slightly lower survival potential after been taken from their mothers, also being lighter than similar aged males. Also there is a tendency for about 55% males to be born to 45% females. Male orangutans are very hard to handle and to work with when they become adults. If a commercial operation would be the goal, one would try to get more difficult to obtain females selectively. The present situation in Safari World would indicate exactly such a commercial approach. If we look at the young orangutans encountered only (there were 35 very young individuals up till the age of four years) the situation is even more extreme, with 28 females and only 7 males, representing a sex ratio of 1:4, or 80% of the young orangutans being female!! The chances of this being a coincidence and the result of breeding are almost zero (Binomal Test, p<0.001)! Analysis of a favourable breeding scenario. If we try to calculate what the maximum number of orangutans could have been under perfect conditions, meaning no deaths, no miscarriages, every time on time pregnancies, immediate reproduction of very young females bred in the group itself, starting off the breeding program with relatively older females and males and at the same time assuming that they already had these orangutans in 1990 with two thirds of the orangutans being female and that they started off with 18 legal orangutans (the highest number we heard was 14 legal orangutans at one time, but we have not yet seen records where even those 14 originally came from on a legal basis) we still get some incredible numbers and discrepancies with regard to numbers and age distribution of the orangutans present in Safari World compared to the actual situation. Orangutans give birth to only one baby at a time. The number of twin births recorded from thousands of births in the entire world is probably less than 10. So in this scenario only single births are used. Babies need to stay with their mothers for at least 1.5 years before they can cope somewhat by themselves, unless they are hand raised needing around the clock care. BOS Indonesia has more than 100 baby sitters for the very young orangutans and very extensive care facilities especially for infant orangutans, Safari World had NO nursery facilities. During the inspection only one young female with a less than one year old male baby was encountered and this mother and child both suffered from a serious skin condition. In addition there was only one other pregnant female orangutan. There were no other recently born babies, only the claim that during the April visit of Dr. Smits one mother died in the process of giving birth. So taking the very optimistic scenario of babies only staying 1.5 years with the mother, than being removed forcibly so as to enable the females to become pregnant again after a few months, and taking into account an almost nine months pregnancy one gets a birth interval of 2.5 years for the most ideal condition. There were 31 orangutan babies in the age range of 2-4 years. With a birth interval of 2.5 years this means that there should be 31 females of 9 years or older! We only found 3 during the inspection! Furthermore assuming that the newborn female babies will start producing off spring at the age of nine years themselves and that again everything runs perfect we can now calculate that in 2003 when an actual number of 115 orangutans was counted in Safari World only 72 could have been present under this more than ideal scenario, a far cry from the actual situation. There is no theoretical way in which the number of 115 orangutans can be explained to be legally there in Safari World! If we look at the age distribution under the above perfect scenario and the age distribution observed during the inspection we get the results as shown in the graphic below. We can see that series 1 represents the age distribution when breeding would be taking place and the perfect scenario outlined above would be achieved. But Series 2 shows that instead of many old orangutans in the first scenario the actual age distribution is exactly the opposite, with many young orangutans and almost no adult orangutans. Again the conclusion can only be that there is no way that this age distribution can be explained in any theoretical realistic way. Clearly those orangutans are not the result of a professional and successful breeding program. Figure 1: Age distribution of the orangutans present at Safari World (Series 2) and according an ideal breeding scheme with no losses at all from 1990 till 2003 starting with 18 orangutans. Note the reverse trend between the two series indicating that the orangutans cannot possibly have been bred at Safari World. The sex ratio to be expected from the above sketched ideal breeding program starting off with 12 females should be 39 females against 33 males or 54% females maximum and 46% males. Needless again to say that the 70 to 30% ratio present cannot be explained with legal happenings. Also there could only have been under the ideal scenario some 46 orangutans younger than 6 years while on November 22, 2003 there were more than 100 individuals younger than 6 years! All of the claims and efforts to raise but a spectre of doubt that they could be legally there in Safari World therefore are unfounded. Looking at the facilities and the health condition of the orangutans encountered more disturbing facts come to the surface. Most of the orangutans were placed in very small cages with insufficient barriers between them. Orangutans were moved between the facilities regularly. There were no mats for cleaning feet coming inside, none of the workers wore masks, and there were no isolation cages. All the conditions for the spread contagious diseases are there. We noted not only skin disease, but also some orangutans with open Herpes, three with serious neurological disturbances, and there were some physical indications that maybe up to ten of the orangutans could be suffering from Hepatitis B or C. Now Safari World claims that some 41 orangutans all died from pneumonia in a very short period of time just previous to the visit of the Indonesian delegation. But there were no signs of pneumonia with the remaining orangutans. It also seems very unlikely that such an enormous event would not be reported and extreme quarantine measures taken, and that all the corpses would be destroyed without any samples being taken or autopsies done. It would be even more unlikely that under the occurrence of such a disaster none of the boxing orangutans would have been involved and that they would continue mixing orangutans between facilities and other orangutans. In the mean time it is clear that this claim was another “misunderstanding”. The condition of the orangutans, especially the ones near the boxing show was rather stressed. Several young orangutans showed wild behaviour like kiss squeaks and extreme agitation as we normally detect with the wild orangutans that BOS has rescued from oil palm plantations. Most of the orangutans had tiny cages with no enrichment. The orangutans in the kitchen building were worst off. Adult male orangutans were locked in tiny stainless steel cages inside a poorly ventilated and dark building. They did not have room to stand or to even lay down stretched in these tiny cages without enrichment. These males and a number of chimpanzees were not seen last time so it is most likely that they are always locked inside these terrible conditions. Some 60 orangutans were from central Kalimantan (Pongo pygmaeus wurmbii), south of the Kapuas river, while six of them belonged to the dark orangutans from East Borneo (Pongo pygmaeus morio). Two looked like Pongo pygmaeus pygmaeus while one could be a hybrid. If all orangutans were the result of breeding there should be many hybrids between the since recent recognized three Borneo subspecies. We took pictures of all 69 individual orangutans. These pictures are a very strong proof for identification, especially for young orangutans that still have the typical dark patches of skin on their bellies and arms and legs. Each of those patterns is unique like a fingerprint. Also with some orangutans we could record the black patches on the gums which remain the same for the lifetime of the orangutans. Other identifying features from the face are the shape of the teeth, the nose and the ears and especially the eyes which have very variable irises that stand out with flash pictures. Other features that are useful in positive identification of individuals from pictures are the facial colour patterns, the presence and shape and colour of facial hair, the angle between the two lines drawn from the middle of the nose towards the pupils, the angle under which the eyes are placed themselves, the presence of scars and dimensions of the body and head such as the ratio between the length of the upper arm and lower arm. At this moment a total inventory is being made of these pictures and comparisons made with some of the orangutans that were in the pictures originally taken by the forestry police in November 2003. Two teams from Indonesia went to visit the Safari world park just across the border in Cambodia at the casino there. The secrecy was enormous and team members were not allowed to film or take pictures of the many orangutans there for various reasons like it would scare the orangutans. The teams mailed their films safely out of the country while other photographers had their exposed films taken from their luggage on crossing the border! There was every indication that a lot was being hidden in the large building behind the orangutan boxing stage. If we can show some of these Cambodian orangutans in this facility, that is said to be owned by Safari World as well, to come from the orangutans originally seen in Bangkok during the November 2003 raid, it would represent proof that the claims of Safari World Director Pin Kewkacha that 41 orangutans died only recently are false and that those orangutans were moved freely between countries. The Thai forestry police will be invited to come to Indonesia to work with the Indonesian experts on this matter. Other orangutans in Thailand Besides Safari World there are many other Zoos and entertainment places that have orangutans in Thailand. In Phuket orangutans were used for taking pictures with visitors. In the Lopburi Zoo there are five confiscated orangutans and in the Kao Prathapchang center there were three orangutans left after one died. Many other places have orangutans as well. Two Indonesian teams filmed up to 13 orangutans in the Safari World facility just across the border with Cambodia. Kao Prathapchang Center On April 10, 2004 Dr. Willie Smits visited the Prathapchang forestry wildlife breeding center run by Mr Pornchai. At the center he looked at three confiscated orangutan babies. One Bornean female, about 2 years old, named Joy, was in a cage by herself. She looked physically very healthy was active and did not look stressed. She had been confiscated together with a small male that however had died five days after arrival at the center. The surviving female looks like a Pongo pygmaeus morio, the black orangutan from East-Kalimantan. In another cage were two female Bornean orangutans from Central Kalimantan, one about 3 years old, the other two years and three months. The older one was kiss squeaking a lot and showed all the behaviours of a recently wild caught orangutan baby. These two orangutans were confiscated from a chicken farm and had probably been released during a police raid on the neighbouring facility that had more than one thousand illegal birds, amongst which many (500!) Sulfur crested Cockatoos, and some other parrots, probably also from Indonesia. They must have wandered off to the chicken farm where they were found two weeks later. These three orangutans and the five orangutans in Lopburi Zoo have all gone through the legal process and could have been send back to Indonesia for a long time already but Thailand has not done so yet. During a demonstration by Profauna, BOS and the network of Indonesian animal rescue centers at the Thai Embassy in Jakarta members of Profauna and the press were invited in to speak with the Thai Ambassador. The ambassador stated that the prime minister of Thailand had now banned the orangutan boxing show and that only when the DNA test had shown that these orangutans in Safari World were from Indonesia they would be send back to Indonesia. He also stated that the Indonesian government had made no official complaint about the orangutans, so why would the Indonesian NGO’s care. Conclusions All indications are that there is a case of systematic lying taking place and that almost all the orangutans have come from the wild in Indonesia. The Borneo Orangutan Survival Foundation (BOS), the network of Indonesian Animal Rescue Centers and Profauna Indonesia therefore requested the Thai government to immediately return the orangutans to Indonesia where additional research will provide all details on the origins and relationships of those orangutans. Under CITES it is allowed to send the confiscated animals to any rescue station, be it in Thailand or Indonesia. With the situation as outlined above they should go to Indonesia. With Monkey World having guaranteed the financial back up we can guarantee that the orangutans will get the best possible care immediately. BOS has already contacted Katsaert University, which has said it has the staff, facilities and willingness to do the DNA testing and BOS has already made available funds for this. But BOS wants the process to be transparent, not just transfer the funds to the Department of National Parks in Thailand and leave it all to them. BOS wants to make available other experience with DNA testing of orangutans to assist Katsaert University. In view of the unclear presence of orangutans in Cambodia in another facility of Safari World and the highly unlikely continuously changing stories like 41 orangutans dying in a very short period of pneumonia having it changed to five dying and on August 19th reporting three additional deaths, it is recommended to ensure nothing else can go wrong and we offer to send our medical staff that is very experienced with orangutans to help the Thai forestry police. The animal rescue centers in Thailand are not very well equipped to deal with such large numbers of orangutans while Indonesia has more than sufficient capacity. There can be only one conclusion, whatever way one looks at it. The orangutans should go back to Indonesia immediately. The Indonesian side is willing to take whatever steps needed to support this. Thailand has a chance to show real goodwill by having them send to Indonesia first while awaiting the outcome of the follow up checks and send the other “non-problematic” confiscated orangutans back immediately. The check on the orangutans in Thailand should also be extended to all orangutans present in the many different locations in Thailand to find out their origins as well for obviously the smuggling network is huge in south East Asia. Many orangutans are also showing up in Malaysian hotels and resorts, in Vietnam, Cambodia and many other countries like the Philippines and Kuwait. In view of the rampant problem of animal smuggling in the region the proposal by the Indonesian Ministry of Forestry to establish a joint task force to deal with the problem should be followed up and supported by other organizations as well. Indonesia should also investigate ongoing practices with orangutan shows in Indonesia immediately. It is still unclear for instance how the Ancol recreation park was able to acquire 13 orangutans for shows legally and they are continuing to perform boxing shows with orangutans in Jakarta until today. The upcoming micro chipping and database program of the Indonesian Ministry of Forestry will provide a good first step and opportunity to get a grip on the illegal wildlife issues. Dr. Willie Smits The Borneo Orangutan Survival Foundation ===== __________ Too much spam in your inbox? Mail gives you the best spam protection for FREE! http://uk.mail. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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