Veterinarian Report
By. Drh. Herlin Rangkuty August - Oct. 15th 2001

VETERINARIAN REPORT August - September 15th 2001 By Drh. Herlin Rangkuty

Dear All Friends,

There are many thing happened this month with orangutan rehabilitation project, community development project, fish farming, re-forestation project, and also the sad things such as illegal logging, illegal mining in Tanjung Puting National Park. Some of it make the tension between police and the illegal logger higher. As usual we will give you our up date information at the two stations, Tanjung Harapan and Pondok Tanggui.  Our  observation on the interaction between rehabilitation orangutan and the wild orangutan at  Pondok Tanggui will also included. We would also like to inform you the tourism activity at the park after "Black Tuesday" and "US attack  Afghanistan".

Here is our report in detail :

PONDOK TANGGUI

We have been continuing our observation on the method that we have done for the rehabilitation orangutan at this station. Evaluation and monitoring to the rehabilitation orangutan have to be done before we can choose or use other method. Especially when  we do this activities to the orangutan which can not survive well by them self such as Copral and Corin.

First, we have been evaluating the "feeding" method that we used before. The number of the food that we are giving to the them must be decreased gradually. Right now we give them only small amount of supplemental food. We hope  they will able to get their own food more in the  forest. We have observed some orangutans behavior after feeding time especially Copral and Corin. Some of them go back to feeding area because they still can find food on the feeding platform. They only leave the feeding place for a while then back again to the same place. We decided to clean up all of the food left over after they finished their food while we are there so there will be no more food left. Monty, male orangutan around 15 years old came to the feeding on September 29, 2001 after more than one year never show up at the station. He came down to the feeding place and join his friends to have some food and then go back to the forest. He is in a good condition with long and shiny hair. He has a size as big as Thosido.

Darmono 8 years old Rosmerry's adopted son needs more attention than other orangutan because recently Rosmery try to wean him by treating him badly every time he close to her. Even Rosmery ever had another adopted baby before Darmono named Pangkut we still need to give Darmono a special attention in case there is anything bad happen to him. Rosmery's has her own baby named Rica. Even sometime Rosmery treat Darmono a little bit hard she still protect Darmono very well. Right now Darmono plays more with Doyok when Rosmerry left him. We noticed there are about three wild adult male orangutans visit this station.

We can hear their long call in the morning from different places such as from the feeding place to the Eastern direction, close to the ranger's hut to the Northern direction and the last one is from a cross of Seikonyer river on the other side of the park area. Some time we can hear their long call in the morning at the same time.

On September 7th an adult male orangutan came to the feeding area. He visited this place for about 4 times. His size is almost at the same size with the other adult male orangutan we have reported last month. We can recognized their differences from their face and some scars on their cheek pad. This one is not afraid with the rehabilitated orangutan and he joined them for on the feeding platform. We have to stop him to come to this place because we do not want he become habituated / tame and depend on us for the food. We are trying to find more information on this orangutan, whether he is one of ex-rehabilitation or the wild one.

INTERACTION OBSERVATION

We have observed 3 wild orangutans and 1 adult male orangutan that showed  us they are making interaction with the rehabilitated one very well. We identified them and give them name. We are also recording their activity. We named one of the adult male who came to this station a month a go "Michelo" and the new comer adult male orangutan "Richardo", adult female with her 2 years baby "Philisia" and adult female with 1,5 years old baby "Lucia". We have recorded that Michelo traveling together with the rehabilitated orangutan for about three times and came to the feeding place just once. He is very close to Rosmery. The other male juvenile like Thosido and Klombang are afraid to meet  this adult male.

Lucia's  body size as big as Davida at Tanjung Harapan station. We saw her for the first time on September 29th about 3 km to the east direction from the station. She was moving on trees while other rehabilitated orangutan Klombang and Pangkut were about 8 meters from her position. Klombang try to came closer to Lucia but she refuse Klombang. Because he was rejected by Lucia, Klombang back to Pangkut again and then they mate on the tree.

Richardo is also very close to Rosmery and they come to the feeding place together. Richardo stayed far away from the feeding platform but Rosmery will come to him after she finished her meal and give him some bananas. After all of them had  their food, they back to the forest again, together. Jacky, Anhar, Ijuh, Rossy, Masran, Nanang and Jabut never come to station for one month.

TANJUNG HARAPAN

We have been evaluating and monitoring the progress of 4 babies that we have at this station. Nyoman (4 years 2 months old) and Bonzen (4 years 8 months old) always stay  over night at the forest when they traveling with Davida or Congo.

We recorded that they stay 1-2 night at the forest without Davida or Congo. They sleep at the trees around station up river. They can make their own nest at the afternoon just for resting then moved again to the other side of the forest. They always travel together from trees to trees and never walk on the ground except when they come to the station. If they hear any strange thing they will climb up the tree and watch the situation until they feel safe to move again.

Adung and Lady can not make their own nest until to day. We have to teach them how to do it by giving them some branches at their cage during the night. The orangutans health condition in bothh stations in general are in good. Lady lost her appetite for sometime but she is fine now after we gave her Vitamin treatment.

RE-FORESTATION

Our nurseries are in good condition. The one at Tanjung Harapan village has only 0,5 %  mortality rate especially for the "Trantang Tree". The adaptation process  to the environment for these seedlings come now on the second stage by giving them more sunlight expose about 50 %. We already have 2045 seedling and by next week we will proceed to work with the land preparation. We have to make lots of hole and collecting some fertile soil at Pondok Tanggui station.

ECOTOURISM.

There are some tourists still visit Tanjung Puting recently.  The situation in Pangkalan Bun and Kumai still suitable for tourism and there is no effect from the "Afghanistan war". There is no protest, sweeping or other activities against US alliances attack to Afghanistan in Kumai or Pangkalan Bun. The tourist still safe to come and visit Tanjung Puting National Park.

ILLEGAL LOGGING.

Most of the loggers who work out side of the national park are the villager from Tanjung Harapan village,  some of them are from Kumai. There was an incident between the loggers and the policemen on October 9th. It was misunderstanding between villagers and policemen. The policemen wanted to stop loggers who were pulling logs on the river by shooting their gun to the air. The villager that heard the shooting came to the river and they saw a pregnant lady on the boat that pulling the logs. The villager were very angry with the policemen action, then they came to the station to ask the policemen why they did that. Fortunately, there were no serious things happen after this misunderstanding. What we afraid about is if the policemen can not do anything after this accident. We know that if the policemen do not stop the illegal logging at the outside park area very soon, the illegal loggers will take their chance to go to the park area. Other things is most of the villager work as logger and we do not know whether they log outside or inside the park. They do not have other job than  logger and they already ran out of food. If they do not cut trees and sell it to make money they can not continue their life. It seems like the economy crisis is the main problem for them. The only job that they can do is only logging. We do not sure if they never know anything about conservation and law or they do not want to know. The local government can not provide alternative  job for them to allow them not work as logger.

FISH FARMING

We found that about 87 fishes died since two weeks ago. From the autopsies we found some damages in the intestine, swollen liver and color change in the intestine. It is because of the bad quality of the water we use from the river.

It is become worst by the mercury pollution from the mining up river. From the pH test we found that the water are very acid. We also did some test by catch some fish from the small river that not contaminated by the river water than weput them at the fish pond we have and its only need one night for that fish to die. We still sending some sample of the water to the lab at Pangkalan Bun to be analyzed. We also have sent some fish specimen to the microbiology lab to investigate more about problem.

That is all we can report for this month and thank you very much for your attention.

Sincerely Yours,

Drh. Herlin Rangkuty FNPF Vet

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