Smuggled orangutans in Thailand---still there after more than one year

[Guest guest]

PRESS RELEASE

Smuggled orangutans in Thailand---still there after

more than one year

 

NGO’s worldwide have been rallying behind more than

100 orangutans illegally transported to Thailand since

their discovery in a raid on a private zoo outside

Bangkok on 22 November 2003.

Thai delegates arrive in Jakarta, Indonesia tomorrow

(27 November) as guests of the Borneo Orangutan

Survival Foundation (BOS), an international charity

determined to see the repatriation of the orangutans

to their place of origin: Kalimantan, Indonesia. The

delegates include General Swake Pinsinchai, Commander

of Thai Forestry Police and chief investigator in the

Safari World case. The delegates will also meet with

the King of Yogyakarta and the Indonesian Minister of

Forestry.

To date, no reply has been made on the part of the

Thai authorities in response to numerous letters and

emails sent by BOS, other NGO’s and even the

Indonesian government regarding this issue. In

addition, thousands of concerned members of the public

worldwide have signed petitions and sent postcards and

letters to protest the continued incarceration of the

orangutans. Indeed, no action was taken after the

Safari World, the zoo which was raided, confessed that

at least 47 of the orangutans were illegally obtained.

General Swake twice ordered the removal of the

orangutans by the Thai Department of National Parks,

most recently on 4 October 2004, but so far this order

has not been heeded. Since the order, 14 orangutans

have died. The Director General of the Department of

National Parks wrote to General Swake on 31 August,

2004, stating that he did not think the Safari World

matter was a crime. The Department of National Parks

also is known to have an additional 8 orangutans at

their breeding centres. They refuse to comment of the

origin of these orangutans.

In the meantime, Bangkok has been host to the CITES

(Convention on the International Trade in Endangered

Species) conference and the IUCN- The World

Conservation Union conference in recent weeks.

Despite international attention surrounding these

events and in defiance of the rules governing CITES,

the Thai authorities still felt it was not imperative

to resolve the situation.

The Borneo Orangutan Survival Foundation, the world’s

largest primate conservation organization, has paid

for DNA tests to verify that the orangutans were not a

part of a successful breeding program, as was asserted

by the owner of the zoo. They have also offered to pay

for the repatriation and the continued care of the

orangutans at one of their orangutan rehabilitation

centers in Central Kalimantan, from which they will be

returned to the wild.

 

=====

Michelle Desilets

BOS UK

www.savetheorangutan.org.uk

www.savetheorangutan.info

" Primates Helping Primates "

 

Please sign our petition to rescue over 100 smuggled orangutans in Thailand:

http://www.thePetitionSite.com/takeaction/822035733

 

 

 

 

 

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