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In the footsteps of Dr Birute Galdikas - An orangutan escapade


Kitsafari

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@Kitsafari

 

While reading your answer to my question, I felt quite afraid as I do not want to see orang utan on feeding station such as at Sepilok, I always prefer seeing wild animals.

Well, your last pictures show you can take good shots of orang utan in their habitar, before or just after they feed on the platforms.

However, I would love hiking in the forest to look after them. Is this posible with tailor-made trip?

 

Thanks!

 

Hi @@jeremie, you can book RImba lodge on your own and they can arrange the boat rides and walking trails for you, or you can hire the klotok to live and travel on. In TA posts the guide Hakim seems very good and popular.

you can view wild orangutans either along the river or on trails to or from the feeding stations. I don't think there are many pure walking trails which is a pity seeing that people want to see more wildlife and the potential to build up more wildlife tourism (for eg hiiring more naturalists) is huge in the park. but there are many challenges in expanding in that area - Trying to put up the RImba lodge was already a huge challenge. the infrastructure for wildlife excursions is still very much in its infancy, so there are probably only a handful of trained guides who are knowledgeable about wildlife.

 

the orangutans we saw at the feeding stations are all now wild and semi-wild. Semi-Wild in that they were rescued from cages or as pets or stranded in palm oil plantations, then released back in the wild. other than the feeding stations, the released ones, are in all practicalities, wild. generally, there is no other help given to the orangutans. not all ex-rescued ones return to, the feeding stations.

 

You will have fewer chances of getting to see an orangutan in the wild than seeing them at the feeding station. it's just like being on safari in africa, luck plays a huge part. But it's easier to spot the animals on wide open savannahs than walking and spotting wildlife in the dense jungle where you will be hot, sweaty and exhausted or pelted with sudden heavy rains surrounded by thick vegetation and tall trees. I am used to such climate so I was fine during the trip but my fellow travelmates looked exhausted by the sheer heat and humidity. Orangutans typically feed at the treetops and they move quietly. so unless you have your neck craned skywards all the time, chances are they get missed more often than not.

 

I felt the same way as you did before I came on the trip. but my views have changed somewhat as the orangutans really need help. Mother orangutans are still being killed so that the babies can be sold as pets. There is a high mortality rate among captive baby orangutans as the purchasers do not know their proper diet and the apes' natural instincts to cling to someone are denied because most of the time they are either chained up or in cages. and as they grow, they become stronger, they end up in small cages. Rescue centers like OFI are often full of confiscated orangutans. it's quite depressing.

Edited by Kitsafari
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A (long) word on Orangutans

 

The trip was specifically to spend time with DrB and learn about her work here –which is all about orang-utans. Orangutans used to have a wider range; their fossils dating about 20,000 years ago have been found in India and China and the rest of Asia. Their range shrank to just Sumatra and Borneo as human settlement shrank forests leading to extinction in other areas.

There are only about 7000 of Pongo Abelii or Sumatran orang-utans left in Sumatra, while there are still an estimated 45,000-69,000 Pongo Pygmaeus or Borneon orang-utans spread around Borneo. The latter is subdivided into sub-species of PP pygmaeus in Sarawak and northwest Kalimantan, PP morio in east Kalimantan and Sabah, and then PP Wurnbii in southern west Kalimantan and central Kalimantan. The Tanjung Puting apes are in the central Kalimantan area.

The OU are the highest and largest arboreal great apes, spending 90%-95% in the trees, coming down to the ground only to feast on termites. OU move slowly which makes them very vulnerable and easy targets. The Borneon OU are more terrestrial than the Sumatran apes. Diet-wise, 90% is of fruits with the rest of young leaves. They often explore the trees, examine the fruits, consigned the location and the trees to memory, and return to the trees when the fruits are ripe weeks later.

They build nests to sleep in at night. We didn’t have a chance to see it this trip as we had to hop on by 4+ to the boat back to Rimba. But we had a glimpse in Danum Valley last year, catching it too late as the orang-utan was already settling into the nest.

ORangutans share 97% of our DNA. Chimps and bonobos are the closest at 99% followed by gorillas at 98%. A new DNA study however found that some regions of the OU’s DNA are a closer match to people than chimps. Link here: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1350807/How-humans-97-orangutans-New-research-shows-DNA-matches.html

 

More info on their current status can be found here: http://www.iucnredlist.org/details/17975/0

 

Camp Leakey is the main spot in Tanjung Puting park where a pioneer group of captive orang-utans were rehabilitated and then released. You can still spot one or two of these pioneers, chief among them Akmad and her latest child. More than 200 rescued captive orang-utans have been released into the park, but it’s getting full. The park has about 6,000 Borneon orang-utans. To understand why the park cannot sustain much more increase in population, one has to look at what the park is.

The park has a diverse flora – part dryland diperocarp forest (tropical hardwood trees found in wet rainforests), peat swampforest, heath forest, mangroves, coastal beach forest and secondary forest. The camp is close to the swamp area where DrB used to wade in armpit-high waters to follow the apes. The land is only about 1.5m above sea levels.

Quality of the soil is poor, as the heavy rains often wash off the top layer of good soil into the rivers. hence, production of good quality fruit is not abundant and that means it can’t support too large a population of orang-utans. The apes used to migrate to other parts of Kalimantan but the corridors have been cut off by human settlements and plantations, mainly palm oil plantations.

Male orang-utans tend to migrate more than females. But with the corridors cut off, a lot of male OU are squeezed into a smaller area. I’m not sure what it means for territorial contests but it would seem logical that fewer alpha males will develop. Generally all male OUs develop cheekpads when they get older but the alpha male will have fuller cheekpads.

Feeding stations are used to alleviate the pressure on food availability. When trees were not fruiting sufficiently, the apes would move out and then return when fruits were abundant. The feeding stations courted a fair bit of controversy among scientists especially those who believed that nature should be left alone without human interference. DrB believed very strongly that without feeding supplements the apes would be at a losing end and eventually die of starvation. The lack of access to other parks is a result of human interference, and illegal logging takes away their arboreal highways, so there is a need for human intervention to offset the negatives.

The feeders say there are days when the apes do not appear at the feeding station, and usually it is a good thing as it means fruiting is good and that they do not need to supplement their natural foraging.

Edited by Kitsafari
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Mooch and Molly. Mooch is a wild orangutan who has become very habituated and learned from other orangutans to take fruit when offered (placed on the floor rather than given by hand) She and her wonderfully expressive baby Molly were very photogenic.

 

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https://youtu.be/vlD9JQgJKXM

Edited by Kitsafari
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sunset on a serene river in the rainforest

 

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Long tailed macaques

 

The species is found mainly in Southeast Asia and is distinctive by its long tail (longer than their height from head to rump) and muzzle. They are found in abundance, thanks mainly to its large variety in its diet of fruits, leaves, small mammals and crabs. They travel in troupes sometimes as large as up to 30 of them in one troupe.

 

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michael-ibk

Wonderful Orang-Utan pics, must have been a great experience! Thanks for all the extra info, very educational.

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A (long) word on Orangutans

 

The trip was specifically to spend time with DrB and learn about her work here –which is all about orang-utans. Orangutans used to have a wider range; their fossils dating about 20,000 years ago have been found in India and China and the rest of Asia. Their range shrank to just Sumatra and Borneo as human settlement shrank forests leading to extinction in other areas.

There are only about 7000 of Pongo Abelii or Sumatran orang-utans left in Sumatra, while there are still an estimated 45,000-69,000 Pongo Pygmaeus or Borneon orang-utans spread around Borneo. The latter is subdivided into sub-species of PP pygmaeus in Sarawak and northwest Kalimantan, PP morio in east Kalimantan and Sabah, and then PP Wurnbii in southern west Kalimantan and central Kalimantan. The Tanjung Puting apes are in the central Kalimantan area.

The OU are the highest and largest arboreal great apes, spending 90%-95% in the trees, coming down to the ground only to feast on termites. OU move slowly which makes them very vulnerable and easy targets. The Borneon OU are more terrestrial than the Sumatran apes. Diet-wise, 90% is of fruits with the rest of young leaves. They often explore the trees, examine the fruits, consigned the location and the trees to memory, and return to the trees when the fruits are ripe weeks later.

They build nests to sleep in at night. We didn’t have a chance to see it this trip as we had to hop on by 4+ to the boat back to Rimba. But we had a glimpse in Danum Valley last year, catching it too late as the orang-utan was already settling into the nest.

ORangutans share 97% of our DNA. Chimps and bonobos are the closest at 99% followed by gorillas at 98%. A new DNA study however found that some regions of the OU’s DNA are a closer match to people than chimps. Link here: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1350807/How-humans-97-orangutans-New-research-shows-DNA-matches.html

 

More info on their current status can be found here: http://www.iucnredlist.org/details/17975/0

 

Camp Leakey is the main spot in Tanjung Puting park where a pioneer group of captive orang-utans were rehabilitated and then released. You can still spot one or two of these pioneers, chief among them Akmad and her latest child. More than 200 rescued captive orang-utans have been released into the park, but it’s getting full. The park has about 6,000 Borneon orang-utans. To understand why the park cannot sustain much more increase in population, one has to look at what the park is.

The park has a diverse flora – part dryland diperocarp forest (tropical hardwood trees found in wet rainforests), peat swampforest, heath forest, mangroves, coastal beach forest and secondary forest. The camp is close to the swamp area where DrB used to wade in armpit-high waters to follow the apes. The land is only about 1.5m above sea levels.

Quality of the soil is poor, as the heavy rains often wash off the top layer of good soil into the rivers. hence, production of good quality fruit is not abundant and that means it can’t support too large a population of orang-utans. The apes used to migrate to other parts of Kalimantan but the corridors have been cut off by human settlements and plantations, mainly palm oil plantations.

Male orang-utans tend to migrate more than females. But with the corridors cut off, a lot of male OU are squeezed into a smaller area. I’m not sure what it means for territorial contests but it would seem logical that fewer alpha males will develop. Generally all male OUs develop cheekpads when they get older but the alpha male will have fuller cheekpads.

Feeding stations are used to alleviate the pressure on food availability. When trees were not fruiting sufficiently, the apes would move out and then return when fruits were abundant. The feeding stations courted a fair bit of controversy among scientists especially those who believed that nature should be left alone without human interference. DrB believed very strongly that without feeding supplements the apes would be at a losing end and eventually die of starvation. The lack of access to other parks is a result of human interference, and illegal logging takes away their arboreal highways, so there is a need for human intervention to offset the negatives.

The feeders say there are days when the apes do not appear at the feeding station, and usually it is a good thing as it means fruiting is good and that they do not need to supplement their natural foraging.

 

@Kitsafari: Tanjung Puting holds an estimated 6000 OU in a 2150 km2 landscapes, the density of big apes is just astonishing, especially if considering the low quality of the soil! It is thus considered as one of the major stronghold for the Bornean OU and no further loss should be accepted in this population. I believe the supply in the feeding station is thus a great solution in the mid-term, we will see what Indonesia will do in the long term. Not so sure it is posible to rehabilitate corridors so easily.

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An overload of orangs! Plus those other cool monkeys. The calls were very audible in your clip. Tom, the orangutan, was up to his tricks for you. He needs to be for the sake of the species. What an honor to meet with Dr. Birute Gildikas who has done so much for the orangutans and to maintain their habitat. I saw her in 1996 at Camp Leaky, but only in passing at mealtimes for a nod or hello. Getting to meet and 'have an audience" with such an expert in the field and a champion of this primate had to be a thrill and a trip highlight. I hope she is grooming members of her staff to continue her legacy.

 

The 7-8 years with mom is the longest of all primates, I believe.

 

I'm surprised at the density of orangs as well.

 

Question for you: Do you know if tourists can stay at Camp Leaky or if it is only a research station now?

 

Those faces you captured in your photos are so expressive. We (humans) just can't wipe them off the planet for palm oil, logging!

 

I have in front of me at my computer station an appeal from Dr. Gildikas and the Orangutan Foundation International at this moment. Your excellent report was very timely. Thank you!

Edited by Atravelynn
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A (long) word on Orangutans

 

 

@Kitsafari: Tanjung Puting holds an estimated 6000 OU in a 2150 km2 landscapes, the density of big apes is just astonishing, especially if considering the low quality of the soil! It is thus considered as one of the major stronghold for the Bornean OU and no further loss should be accepted in this population. I believe the supply in the feeding station is thus a great solution in the mid-term, we will see what Indonesia will do in the long term. Not so sure it is posible to rehabilitate corridors so easily.

 

 

@@jeremie You said it so clearly in such a concise way! Tanjung PUting is full. it hasn't received any released OUs since 1995. OFI managed to find other forests to release the captive OUs but these small pockets of forests are getting fuller every day. I hope to mention this later in the report on palm oil and logging.

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@@Atravelynn Thanks for the comments! highly appreciated. It was a privilege to meet her and spend time with DrB. you'll think for a famed primatologist she'll be living it up. but she's down-to-earth, very maternal and walks around with a frown on her face that makes you think she's unhappy with you but she's actually just thinking where to get the next dollar to help the orangutan and keep the care and nursery centre going, and which OU to release and which OU to rescue.

 

I was going to talk about succession later on, but you brought up the question that was in everyone's mind during our trip. I asked it of her. There is already an established committee in OFI which will carry on her work if anything happens to her (and we pray that will be many decades down the road). The commitee is a mixture of experienced veterans and young people with a passion and commitment for OUs. But I feel that right now, DrB is the main face of the organisation. BEcause of her reputation, her work and her passion, she has to be at the forefront of any appeal and publicity. she has built a long and close relationship with the provincial and local governments, as well as with the national Ministry of Forest officials. To prepare for succession, she needs to begin to transit that crucial relationship and the next face of OFI to the next generation . That will be vital for the smooth continuation of OFI's work, her work and the survival of OUs in the Tanjung Puting park.

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Bearded pigs (for @@Tom Kellie!)

 

The Bornean bearded pigs have whiskers around their long snouts and are usually nocturnal animals but we saw a few of them during the day, scavenging around the feeding stations. They use the snouts to dig for insects and roots and will follow the macaques to eat the fruits dropped by the monkeys. They are found mainly in Malaysia, Sumatra, Borneo and some parts of the Philippines.

 

According to ICUN: “Listed as Vulnerable because of a population decline, estimated to be more than 30% over the last three generations (taken as 21 years), inferred from over-exploitation, shrinkage in distribution, and habitat destruction and degradation.”

 

“Close up, Bornean wild pigs are an odd sight. A dirty pale white, they can stand 3.5 feet at the shoulder.” - Reflections of Eden by Dr Birute Galdikas.

 

a large pig hanging around the camp

 

 

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at the feeding station

 

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at DrB's residence

 

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cross species interaction - with Tom who waved his hands to shoo them away

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Edited by Kitsafari
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post-49296-0-02396600-1436678545_thumb.jpg

~ @@Kitsafari

 

This image ROCKS!

Two species, one snack...on a porch, no less!

Really crazy! I love it!

It's hard to imagine what it must have been like to be there, observing this interaction.

If it were possible, I'd give two ‘Likes’ for this — one for each subject.

At last I know what ‘bearded pigs’ are. Many, many thanks, @@Kitsafari!

Tom K.

Edited by Tom Kellie
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@@Tom Kellie it was awesome watching the cross species interaction. and the male OU's non-belligerence towards the pigs was interesting. while they can become aggressive if provoked, they are generally quite placid and sanguine. but it doesn't mean they are not intelligent. i was watching a juvenile eating the bananas on the platform, and he picked one up, examined it very carefully, then decided to eat it. He was checking if the banana was ripe enough to eat.

 

when DrB first followed the OUs, the animals were not used to humans tracking them. the OUs would throw leaves, branches at her to get rid of her. one time, DrB faced death in the face, when one of them broke a huge branch that came crashing towards her. it hit something and broke into two just before it could reach DrB. now the OUs are more habituated but just like the predators in Africa, one has still to be careful.

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Müller's Bornean gibbon or the grey gibbon is endemic to Borneo and is listed by ICUN as endangered. Link here: http://www.iucnredlist.org/details/10551/0

 

It’s a beautiful thing to watch the lesser ape as it brachiates through the trees with its slender long arms. Thanks to the feeding station at Camp Leakey, a totally wild gibbon called Boy visits daily. Although they live as monogamous pairs, we only saw Boy on his own. I’ not sure how old he is.

 

 

i couldnt get good shots because i was too slow and he was too fast!

 

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https://youtu.be/m6d3J8XRPW0

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Day 2 at camp leakey:

 

winding down the narrow stretches of Sekonyer

 

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this morning, we visited another feeding station at Pondok Tanggui. we waited nearly an hour but no OU turned up, no thanks to the chatterings of our group. I was guilty of it too. :( the rangers shushed us, but the OUs were too nervous to come into sight. as we left for Camp Leakey, DrB came trudging down, and sure enough, when she sat down, the OUs came to the platform, reassured by her presence.

 

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waiting and waiting.....

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reflections

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a welcome from Siswi to Camp Leakey

 

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the love between DrB and her OUs

 

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https://youtu.be/1zv95H_6j7k

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Tea with DrB and OUs and Pigs - it was crowded, with Tom, Peta and baby, Mooch and Baby and her son who visited fleetingly before Tom chased him off, and male and female pigs, and a big group of humans

 

Peta and baby on the rooftop

 

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Tom dominating the front porch

 

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surveying his kingdom

 

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Mooch and baby

 

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https://youtu.be/vlD9JQgJKXM

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As mentioned, TPNP is full after releasing 250 wild born ex-captive OUs there. In 1998, OFI succeeded in getting the government to establish a logged forest as a wildlife reserve and the Lamandau wildlife reserve was born. Some 150 OUs were released and 10 wild OUs were translocated here from 1998-2008. The reserve was drastically reduced after the govt took back 54,000 ha, but it has agreed to add another lightly logged dry ground forest to the reserve “in the future”.

 

Current release sites are Camp Hanau and camp seluang Mas.

 

To combat the issue of scarce forests, OFI is buying up land. Land acquisition is very complex in Indonesia and sometimes you may get the title but it can be contested in protracted negotiations. OFI bought a 6,400-acre forest habitat and 1,500 acres of surrounding buffer forest called Rawa kuno Legacy forest (close to TPNP) for around US$743,000. But they want to buy more, and appealing to raise US$2.4m to buy and protect over 6,000 acres of land next to Rawa Kuno forest. This will build a corridor to the Village protected forest established by Pasir Panjang and OFI.

 

 

DrB is also urgently raising funds to buy a strip of land next to the Sekonyer River as an inland palm oil plantation has pushed the OUs and Proboscis monkeys to the edge of the river, just opposite TPNP. OUs can’t swim although Prob monkeys can. But it is a very wide river. after reading @@tony's TR where they had built a rope across the rivers, i wonder if it is feasible to do it at Sekonyer River. But the river is very wide.

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much has been written about palm oil and deforestation so i'll keep it brief here. I didn't see the plantations as we were quite deep in the park.

 

Palm Oil and logging

 

Illegal and legal logging in Indonesia reached its peak in the 1990s when an average 2m ha of forests were lost each year. The government imposed a forest moratorium in 2011, that is no new permits were given for clearing forests. It helped slow down forest cover loss between 2011 and 2013. But there is a limited use of the moratorium as it covers only new permits, which means current permit holders (palm oil and timber companies) turned to clearing existing forests in their concessions.

 

Palm oil is a double-edged sword for the government. On the one hand, plantations have positive economic benefits such as creating jobs in both upstream and downstream industries. Margins are very good in palm oil plantations and big plantation companies monopolised the industry. But the new Jokowi government is promoting a biofuel policy to reduce the country’s dependence on crude oil. The biofuel policy, mixing palm oil into diesel, also encourages more small landholders to turn to palm oil. That puts pressure on forests.

 

Indonesia is the biggest exporter of palm oil, accounting for over half of total world output. Between 2000 and 2012, oil palm plantations doubled to 8m ha of land. Palm oil was used in the past as a cooking oil but its advantages caught on fast. It is highly saturated vege oil and contains little bad cholesterol. It has high oil yield (which makes margins attractive). Demand for it grew sharply and it now has found an insidious way into many everyday products worldwide. The toothpaste, the breads, the lipsticks contain palm oil. Total use has risen tenfold since 1980 to 63m tonnes a year. This is set to rise to 240m tonnes a year by 2050, according to the WWF.

 

Palm oil in itself is not an evil product. It is when producers start clearing forests indiscriminately that makes it unappealing. This is more so when they started clearing peat swamps. To do so, they cleared (the fastest is to burn) and drained the land but the fire in the peat (which is hard to put out) simmered under the land for months. This released huge amounts of carbon dioxide. According to WWF, up to 66% of all climate change emissions from oil plantations come from 17% of those on carbon-rich peat soils.

 

 

In 2004, when it became clear that forest loss was not sustainable, the palm oil industry set up the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) to ensure that plantation owners keep to sustainable practices. Although the RSPO has palm oil producers on its committee, leading to conflicts of interest, right now, it is an organisation that can work to push its members to be more conscious of sustainability.

as will global moves to push palm oil suppliers and corporate users of palm oil to adopt more sustainable methods of growing the plant without destroying more forested land.

Edited by Kitsafari
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@@Kitsafari

I am very much enjoying your engaging and informative writing, and loving the photographs that go with it. (especially Mooch and baby!)

 

The rope bridges we saw in Sabah were across some of the smaller side channel rather than across the main river. I suspect they wouldn't work across a wide river. (Interestingly, when we were in Belize there was an area where the local community had put up rope bridges across some of the roads so that howler monkeys could move from one patch of forest to another without coming down to the ground and risking accidents)

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@Kitsafari

 

While reading your answer to my question, I felt quite afraid as I do not want to see orang utan on feeding station such as at Sepilok, I always prefer seeing wild animals.

Well, your last pictures show you can take good shots of orang utan in their habitar, before or just after they feed on the platforms.

However, I would love hiking in the forest to look after them. Is this posible with tailor-made trip?

 

Thanks!

 

Sumatra is probably your best bet. I posted some photos from my trip here.

 

Seeing orangutans in Sumatra was just as good as seeing gorillas in Uganda. Seeing orangutans in Sepilok didn't come close.

 

It's possible to do multi day treks through the forest.

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An overload of orangs! Plus those other cool monkeys. The calls were very audible in your clip. Tom, the orangutan, was up to his tricks for you. He needs to be for the sake of the species. What an honor to meet with Dr. Birute Gildikas who has done so much for the orangutans and to maintain their habitat. I saw her in 1996 at Camp Leaky, but only in passing at mealtimes for a nod or hello. Getting to meet and 'have an audience" with such an expert in the field and a champion of this primate had to be a thrill and a trip highlight. I hope she is grooming members of her staff to continue her legacy.

 

The 7-8 years with mom is the longest of all primates, I believe.

 

I'm surprised at the density of orangs as well.

 

Question for you: Do you know if tourists can stay at Camp Leaky or if it is only a research station now?

 

Those faces you captured in your photos are so expressive. We (humans) just can't wipe them off the planet for palm oil, logging!

 

I have in front of me at my computer station an appeal from Dr. Gildikas and the Orangutan Foundation International at this moment. Your excellent report was very timely. Thank you!

 

@@Atravelynn I didn't answer your question! so sorry - tourists stay either at Rimba or on the klotok which anchors along Sekonyer River at night, or at the new rooms at the Sekonyer village. Camp leakey is now only a research centre. There are still researchers in the forest and much of their work is now on identifying the DNA of the OUs through their faeces.

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@@jeremie I forgot to add that for wild OUs, you can go to Danum Valley forest in Sabah. kittykat23uk and i saw wild OUs in the forest (my report is here: http://safaritalk.net/topic/12887-danum-valley-weekend/ and kittykat's here: http://safaritalk.net/topic/12548-birds-beasts-and-bugs-trekking-in-sabah-borneo/

 

but TonyQ wasn't able to see any when he was there.

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@@Atravelynn Thanks for the comments! highly appreciated. It was a privilege to meet her and spend time with DrB. you'll think for a famed primatologist she'll be living it up. but she's down-to-earth, very maternal and walks around with a frown on her face that makes you think she's unhappy with you but she's actually just thinking where to get the next dollar to help the orangutan and keep the care and nursery centre going, and which OU to release and which OU to rescue. About 20 years later I get an explanation for exactly what I observed. I recall vividly that look of consternation and seriousness that I interpreted as "don't interfere." Thanks for the enlightenment.

 

I was going to talk about succession later on, but you brought up the question that was in everyone's mind during our trip. I asked it of her. There is already an established committee in OFI which will carry on her work if anything happens to her (and we pray that will be many decades down the road). The commitee is a mixture of experienced veterans and young people with a passion and commitment for OUs. But I feel that right now, DrB is the main face of the organisation. BEcause of her reputation, her work and her passion, she has to be at the forefront of any appeal and publicity. she has built a long and close relationship with the provincial and local governments, as well as with the national Ministry of Forest officials. To prepare for succession, she needs to begin to transit that crucial relationship and the next face of OFI to the next generation . That will be vital for the smooth continuation of OFI's work, her work and the survival of OUs in the Tanjung Puting park. Good points. I too agree.

 

Dr. B and the orang in B&W is an emotional shot!

So many handsome portraits of Tom! And the Tom and the bearded pig, what a cameraderie that is and they are so tolerant of each other.

The mother and baby portraits are so touching. You can see an obvious kiss on the lips between them. You're a Mary Cassatt of the Orangutan World!

 

Thanks for the Camp Leaky info.

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@Csaba and @@Kitsafari

Thank you for this great information. I was in fact considering Sumatra and it is great to get more information about it!

If I was first considering Malaysia for a Bornean trip, higher prices and lower probabilities to see wild orang utan, turned me to consider Tanjung Puting instead of Sabah.

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Sekonyer Village

 

On the last day, we were to take speedboats to the Sekonyer village, just a few minutes from RImba, and then onward to the town of Kumai. The village is supported by OFI, which built a school and mosque for the villagers. In part, it was a gesture for the villagers who agreed to move the old settlement in the park to the current location, which is just across the river from the national park. OFI also makes it a point to hire the villagers for the camp. The ranger head at Pondok Tanggui is the son of the previous head who came from the village.

 

Slices of life

 

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