How to Help Orangutans

Today is the final day of #orangutancareweek.

If you have enjoyed reading my posts and would like to do so, please consider a small donation to Orangutan Foundation UK to help them continue their wonderful work.

Whilst in Borneo, I planted a couple of trees. Orangutan habitat is vulnerable to forest fires, either lit deliberately to clear land or spreading accidentally. Tree planting schemes help to regenerating the forest and restore natural ecosystem, as well as re-creating areas of orangutan habitat.

Of course, we can’t all travel to Borneo to plant trees! Here are some other ways in which you could help:

Adopt an orangutan! For £30 a year, you can sponsor one of the youngsters we actually met at Camp JL. All adoption money goes directly towards the care and protection of orangutans in the Lamandau Wildlife Reserve. https://www.orangutan.org.uk/adopt

Join the Orangutan Foundation and get regular updates about their conservation work. https://www.orangutan.org.uk/shop/membership

Sponsor an acre of forest for just £2. This will help raise funds to protect a total 500,000 acres of tropical forest and 5,000 critically endangered orangutans. https://www.orangutan.org.uk/shop/sponsor-an-acre

Volunteer! Take part in practical orangutan conservation working holiday. Tasks included construction of orangutan release sites and guard posts in protected areas, renovating a tropical forest research station and an information centre. This provides the chance to see both rehabilitated and wild orangutans. https://www.orangutan.org.uk/volunteer

Visit. Included in the cost of my trip was a donation to orangutan conservation charities, and I believe the National Park also receive an entrance fee that protects and supports the park. If any budding photographers out there want to take part in a similar experience, check out woody wood’s website: https://www.agoodplace.co.uk/wildlife-photography-holidays/borneo-orangutan-holiday

For other ways to support Orangutan Foundation UK, see https://www.orangutan.org.uk/ways-to-give

Share information and education others. I’ve now saved my posts as ‘public’ so feel free to share if you want to. Thank you for reading my posts over the last week, I hope you have enjoyed them and gained something from them.

#orangutans #redape

Orangutan Rehabilitation and Release

On Day 6 of #orangutancaringweek I take a look at the positive steps being taken to conserve #orangutans and their habitats.

Organisations such as Orangutan Foundation UK help to ensure protected areas stay protected, create new conservation areas to safeguard orangutan populations and prevents deforestation. In the words of Dr Liz Greengrass, Born Free’s Head of Conservation: “Habitat loss is the orangutan’s biggest threat. If we fail to protect their forests, we will fail the orangutans.”

To achieve long-term success, it’s vital that local communities who live alongside orangutans are involved and support conservation initiatives. The Orangutan Foundation has had great success in reducing the number of illegal activities in the forests of Tanjung Puting National Park and Lamandau Wildlife Reserve by maintaining a high visible presence and engaging local people. Guard posts have been constructed in strategic locations and daily foot patrols deter unwanted visitors. Drone footage helps to monitor the forests, and fire-fighting teams have been trained and are ready to respond to any reports of forest fires in the critical orangutan habitat.

Lamandau Nature Reserve is an expired logging concession comprising peat swamp forest - prime orangutan habitat. It was designated as an official orangutan release site in 1997. Due to the threat of infection, rehabilitated orangutans cannot be released into wild populations. Lamandau is one of the few sites where orangutans can be released, and it now comprises a semi-wild population of c.500 released orangutans and their off-spring.

There are several camps within the reserve. On the last day of our visit to Borneo, we were very fortunate to be invited by Orangutan Foundation UK to visit the soft release programme in the Lamandau reserve with Director Ashley Leiman.

This involved a speed boat trip along the river from Pangkalan Bun to the reserve, where we entered progressively narrower and shallower waterways. We had to transfer to long boats called klotoks to complete the trip and reach Camp JL.

Camp JL is a soft release site where young orangutans learn the skills they need to survive independently in the wild. Orangutans arriving in the programme are normally under five years of old, and have been separated or orphaned from their mother.

At the camp, the youngsters are gradually reintroduced to the forest environment so that they can gain in confidence and develop natural behaviours. These include the vital skills of climbing, finding food and making a nest. Only once these skills and behaviours have been consistently demonstrated will they be ready for release into the wild. It was a joy to watch their antics in the trees as they clambered around and interacted with each other.

The staff that look after the orangutans are all local people that are passionate and dedicated to conserving the forest and its wildlife. They live on site in remote locations for weeks at a time, often away from their own families.

More information on TimTom, one of the youngsters from Camp JL, is available on the Born Free website at: https://www.bornfree.org.uk/articles/timtoms-story

When the young orangutans are old enough, healthy and able to live independently in the wild, they are released. However they aren’t just left to fend for themselves, they are released in proximity to a camp so that staff can continue to monitor their progress and orangutans can take advantage of supplementary feeding, should they wish to do so. Down-river we visited the Camp Gemini post-release site and ‘met’ some of the orangutans now living free in the forest.

Despite the efforts of staff to discourage orangutans from human contact, it is clear that some are habituated and even seek out human contact - Sheila, a mature female, was clearly posing for the camera and Max and baby Monty hung out around the food store at the camp.

Keep tuned tomorrow when I share ways to help support orangutan conservation.

#orangutans #redape

Threats to Orangutans

On Day 5 of #orangutancaringweek my post takes a more sombre tone and looks at the threats to orangutans.

Being arboreal (tree-dwelling), orangutan populations are difficult to estimate. One way of estimating their numbers is by counting their nests combined with satellite imagery. According to one estimate, there are now c. 57,000 Bornean orangutans in the wild, 80% of which live outside of protected areas and so are vulnerable.

Bornean orangutan population is predicted to decline by 86% from 1950 to 2025, due to loss of habitat - Borneo has lost about half of its natural forests since 1985, and this could reach two-thirds by 2020. As a result, orangutans are classified as being ‘threatened’ in the wild.

The main threat to orangutans is deforestation, the two main causes of this being clearance for palm oil plantations and illegal logging.

Palm oil is everywhere – it’s the most widely used vegetable oil in the world and is contained in half of the packaged foods on supermarket shelves. Global demand for palm oil has resulted in massive forest destruction throughout Indonesia and Malaysia, which together produce 85% of the world’s palm oil and is a major industry and export for these countries. The problem lies in its mass production, which necessitates the clearance of vast areas of native rainforest and its replacement with a monoculture crop. Millions of hectares have been converted in this way, with devastating impacts on biodiversity. Deforestation also cause soil erosion and, because most forests have been cleared through the use of fire, air pollution from smoke. Much of the land on which palm oil plantations have been established consists of peat swamp forest – these are carbon sinks and the draining, burning, and conversion of peat swamp forests to palm oil has been especially damaging to the world’s climate, releasing massive amounts of stored greenhouses gases into the atmosphere.

Illegal logging has also had a major impact on forest areas. Until recently, up to 70% of timber produced in Indonesia was thought to be from illegal sources, and whilst this is no longer as prevalent it still occurs. Illegal logging removes high value trees from the forest – often the same species – and often large, long lived, seed producing trees. This alters the structure of the forest which can impact on the food resources available for orangutans and their ability to nests and move through the canopy. The act of logging also creates trails, waterways and breaks in the forest that can lead to other issues such as soil erosion, changing water levels, and increased human disturbance.

These two issues result in a loss of habitat for orangutans, as well as habitat fragmentation. When their natural habitat is removed, orangutans may resort to raiding crops and come into conflict with humans. Those that are not rescued from such situation may be persecuted or die of starvation.

Where an adult dies or is killed, youngsters are often (illegally) kept by local people as pets, often in cramped cages. When known, such youngsters are rescued by charities, then rehabilitated and returned to the wild. You can read one such typical story on the Orangutan Foundation UK blog - https://www.orangutan.org.uk/blog.

In September 2018, Indonesia's president signed a moratorium on all new palm oil plantation development, effectively stopping any new land being made available for plantations. Whilst this is a positive move, a massive amount of land has already been lost to such developments. As well as protecting remaining areas of forest, future steps should seek to reinstate some areas of lost forest, re-connecting isolated habitats.

Tomorrow’s post takes a more positive tone and looks at the conservation efforts to save orangutans and their habitat.

#orangutans #redape

Orangutan Behaviours & Adaptations

It’s Day 4 of #orangutancaringweek!

Orangutan comes from Malay words orang, meaning "person", and hutan, meaning "forest". These “people of the forest” are perfectly adapted to their arboreal habitat. With long arms and legs and feet like hands they can grasp branches easily to travel through the forest canopy.

Like all great apes, orangutans have large brains and are self-aware and capable of reasoning. In the wild, orangutans use tools such as sticks to extract insects and honey to eat. When it rains they will cover their heads with leaves, which act like an umbrella. In captive or semi-wild conditions orangutans have been taught to use sign-language.

Orangutans are semi-solitary which is unique among primate species. The scarcity of food means orangutans spend up to 60% of their day foraging for food, and it is this competition for food that results in solitary or very small groups of orangutans.

Adult males are the most solitary of all orangutans, interacting only with receptive females. The courtship period between males and females lasts between three to ten days, and males share no role in the upbringing of their offspring. Adult males will not tolerate each other’s company and will often fight, sometimes violently, especially in the presence of a sexually receptive female.

The large throat sacks of adult males is a key orangutan adaptation. These are used as a resonating chamber for the “long call” – this sounds like a loud roar and can carry for almost a mile. The long call may play a role in repelling male rivals and advertising availability to sexually receptive females.

A typical family group comprises a mother and up to two offspring – one baby/toddler that needs to be carried and perhaps still one older youngster (up to 8 years old) that is not yet independent.

Adolescent females will often travel together, especially those of a similar age. Sub-adult males may also be included in such groups.

Orangutans spend most of their in their forest canopy, even building ‘nests’ in the trees where they sleep away from ground predators. Their bodies are adapted to their unique method of arboreal locomotion – called quadrumanous scrambling. The orangutans’ long, narrow hands and feet are especially useful for grasping branches. Their opposable thumbs and big toes are short to facilitate the hook-like function of hands and feet, particularly in brachiation and hanging on to tree branches. They have highly mobile hip and shoulder joints that allow them to easily move from branch to branch and tree to tree.

Unlike other great apes, who are usually dark in colour, orangutan bodies are covered in thick reddish brown hair. This colouring may help them blend in to the forest environment, with some trees in the canopy containing orangey-brown dead leaves, and others having reddish leaves when young.

Like other great apes, orangutans have high cognitive abilities which manifests as tool-use and even the making of simple tools. For example, orangutans have been observed making simple tools to scratch themselves, as well as using branches to shelter themselves from rain and sun, and to forage for insects and honey.

Recently, scientists have found increasing evidence of socially learned traditions (culture) within orangutan groups. Scientists observed and identified two dozen behaviors that are present in some orangutan populations and absent from others, such as using leaves as napkins to wipe their chins, leaves as gloves to help them handle spiny fruits, or using leaves as seat cushions in spiny trees. These practices are reportedly learned from other group members and passed down through the generations.

To learn more about orangutans, visit https://www.orangutan.org.uk/orangutans

 #orangutans #redape