Volunteer Report
By. Drh. Herlin Rangkuty July 2001

Dear Friends,

Please accept my apology for our late report for July . We were very busy in this month because there were so many visitor came to the park. Most of the visitors asked us to assist them during their visit time. We give them information about the park, orangutan rehabilitation project, the village, fish farming, and re-forestation project. Sometime we have to assist them to do trekking. We also have finished to set up our new office in Kumai (at the harbor). We hope that we could arrange our activities well or even better at this place.

Here is our report in detail :

Tanjung Harapan

There were a significant different number of visitor who came to the park in this month. It makes us very busy to assist visitor, give them information for several times. They also asked the ranger to be their guide during their stay.

We also have some guest stayed at the guest house so some of the ranger have to give a good service to the guest. Some of the visitors who were staying at the guest house used our Kelotok (boat) during take them to Pondok Tanggui and Camp Leakey.

The orangutan babies like Adung and Lady are under special treatment now. We only permit only one ranger to take care of one baby. No one can make contact with them except the ranger who have been chosen for this job. We hope by doing this we can reduce the human influence in their life and also to avoid the contagious diseases from human to orangutan and vice versa. Adung has more progress than Lady. Adung can stay on the tree longer than Lady.

On July 10, Nyoman and Bonzen followed Davida and her baby to the forest after finished their meals. Until July 14 they never come to the station as their precious time. On the same day, two Belgian Volunteers Jan and Liesbeth saw them at the second tower . On the fifth days we didn't know where they were. On the sixth days with the villagers help we began the search to find them but we didn't find any sign of them. After two weeks searching we have information from villagers that they saw Nyoman and Bonzen about 1 km up river from the station. We keep searching them to that place but again we didn't find them.

On August 2nd, they came to station with not in a good condition. They looked too tired and we found wound on Nyoman's back. We give both of a them special attention to bring their condition back to normal. After three days of treatment they back to forest again. I told the ranger to watch them more careful.

Davida and her baby David, Congo and Yanari come to station very often. Sometime Davida need to give Congo some bananas because Congo is afraid of human. Davida will take some bananas and then bring it to the tree where Congo stay.

Berry the gibbon begin to play at the tree by himself and try to eat leaf, and termite.

Pondok Tanggui

The rangers at this station do their daily activities as usual. like feeding for orangutan, maintain the building, trekking trail, and record the orangutan activities are their daily life. The rangers are also preparing the new site for re-forestation quite far from the station (45 minutes walk). We have been recording the orangutan present at the feeding station, their activities and their health condition.

The orangutan that come to the feeding area are Rosmary with her baby Rica, Darmono, Doyok, Kopral, Corin, Linda, Mandolin, Siswa, Anhar, Pangkut, Thosido, Masran, Klombang and Jabrut. Jacky, Ijuh, Rossy, Nanang, and Monty never come to the feeding area this month. Doyok, Kopral and Corin come to the feeding place very often. We still try to find good method to train them to survive in the forest. They need special treatment to make them more independent.

The ranger at this station reported that on July 30, they saw adult female wild orangutan with her baby around the feeding area. She never come down to the feeding platform just stay at the top of the tree observed the other orangutans. The next day the ranger saw another wild orangutan, adult male around 22 years old with adult female together with Rosmary at the same tree. We believe that there is a good interaction among wild orangutan and and the ex captive orangutan. We plan to make a special observation about this interaction.

As I mentioned before this month the ranger also very busy to assist their guest who come to this station

Orangutan Health Condition

I didn't find any serious problem with orangutan health condition. Adung and Lady got diarrhea last week. After some treatments the diarrhea was gone. Nyoman got wound on his back and I treat him with antibiotic. After six day of treatment his wound was healed.

I have to give treatment to villagers too as the village clinic facility could not give the service that they need . Most of them got skin infection. I believe it came from the water that they use to take bath. They used the river water to take bath even the quality of the water is not clean enough for it. The decreasing of the water quality caused by the pollution from the illegal mining at up river. They really need a good sanitation for their daily life.

Fish Farm and Re-forestation

We have problem with the fish farm recently. The fish grow slower and we believe it is also connected with the bad water quality. We could not bring in the water from the river in a big number as it also do not have a better quality than what we have had right now. We hope the local government more aware to this problem and more serious to stop the illegal miner up river.

We still on process of making a new building for the nursery . We are also preparing the site for re-forestation at Pondok Tanggui.

That is all my report for this month and Thank you very much for your attention and support.

Sincerely Yours,
Drh. Herlin Rangkuty
FNPF's Veterinarian

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