JP/18/MARIA1

JP/18/MARIA1

ProAnimalia offers hope, freedom for RI wildlife

Maria Lisa K.
Contributor/Jakarta

Like all macaques that end up in Jakarta, this particular one had
been taken as a baby from his mother in the jungles of Lampung,
Sumatra, only to live out a solitary life neglected and finally
abandoned by the owners in South Jakarta when it became too
difficult to control.

For months, the one-year-old macaque had been chained to a
fence in the bend of a busy road, inches away from passing motor
vehicles, after the owner decided it was too inconvenient to keep
him in the house.

Teased daily by passing schoolchildren armed with sticks, the
monkey relied on handouts from the vendor selling noodles next to
him as there was never any food or water in his reach.

But his life completely changed one day when a complaint from
a concerned neighbor was forwarded to ProAnimalia International,
a non-governmental organization (NGO) in Jakarta. Within hours,
three women from the NGO arrived to pick up the mistreated
primate and take him back with them to the Tegal Alur wildlife
rescue center near Cengkareng.

Rehabilitation

The monkey is now in quarantine for two months, during which
time he will also receive medical care for the bruises and cuts
caused by the harness and chain he wore for most of his life.

His next move will be to the 14-hectare Sukabumi wildlife
rescue center, where new cages have been built on a one-hectare
site provided for the rescued macaques to help them learn to
survive in a natural habitat and form groups with other primates
surrendered by owners.

Once the monkeys are in groups, they will be released back
into the wild, which in this case is a 17-hectare island in Pulau
Seribu, sometime near the end of June. "This island's perfect for
them: there's a river for them to catch fish, a beach for them to
hunt for small crabs and there's no animals on this island so
they can't harm other creatures," said ProAnimalia's director,
Femke den Haas, who has also been working at the rescue center
for three years.

The island was selected for the monkeys' release after a
survey was carried out in cooperation with the Forestry
Department, as, den Haas pointed out, they know which islands are
protected and suitable for monkeys and where there are no
predators or animals that could be hunted by the macaques. "For
example, we didn't want them to wipe out a population of birds."

Precautionary measures have also been taken to ensure that the
monkeys will not be recaptured for the pet trade again.

Den Haas said that the release of the monkeys was being done
in cooperation with the Forestry Department and that the island
was in a national park, which requires a permit if anyone wishes
to enter.

Microchips are also planted in all animals before their
release in order to identify the individual if it dies and to act
as a further deterrent against the threat of it being captured
again.

She said once the monkeys were released on the island, they
could take in the macaques from the other rescue centers in
Indonesia as their main sponsor, the Gibbon Foundation in
Switzerland, does not pay for the costs of returning non-
protected animals back to the wild.

"These macaques (at other rescue centers) are sitting there
waiting for a program for them, and that's why we want to hurry
their release and be able to take them in, as well as those that
are still living in isolation in Jakarta."

Nonprotected species cared for, too

Not only does the rescue center take in endangered wildlife,
but it receives nonprotected species, such as the macaques, which
also need funding for their care and to get them back into the
wild as well, she noted.

And it was because of the sad plight of the overlooked
macaques and other nonprotected animals that den Haas, together
with Karmele Llano Sanchez, ProAnimalia's veterinary curator,
started the NGO in Holland in May 2004. The latest member to
join the team is Wendy Bos, a fundraiser for the group from
Holland, who often accompanies the others on field trips and
documents their activities.

Concerned individuals are encouraged to call the rescue center
and report the location of a primate or animal in distress, and
action will be taken as soon as possible, depending on the
urgency of the situation and the facilities available.

"If a monkey is being badly beaten or mistreated and they need
us to come straight away, we will, but if it is an animal that
has been there for a long time, and it can wait for another
month, and if we cannot take it at that moment, then it depends
because we don't have that much money or staff to run the program
at this time."

Den Haas stressed that all information from calls made on
behalf of animals needing rescue would be entered into a
database.

Eight staff members take care of more than 100 animals
presently residing at the Tegal Alur wildlife rescue center.
These include raptors, cockatoos, lovebirds from Papua, slow
lorises, siamangs, macaques, gibbons, monitor lizards, snakes,
turtles, crocodiles, bears and wildcats. An orangutan has
recently joined the temporary residents, after it was rescued
from a dark hotel room where it had spent six years of its life
in a small cage.

The Gibbon Foundation, in cooperation with the Forestry
Department, built the center as a backup for law enforcement
programs as the department needed to take care of the wildlife it
confiscated, she explained.

There are eight other centers in the country that make up the
Indonesian rescue center network. Another refuge is in the
planning stages for Sumatra, where 80 percent of the animals that
find their way to the rescue centers are from.

But as Jakarta is the center for Indonesia's thriving pet
trade, the Tegal Alur rescue center receives the most animals. In
2003 alone, the center took in over 700 animals.

"If we have enough cages we keep them here for the full two
months (quarantine), but if orangutans are coming in or other
animals, we need to give them a chance as well, so we send the
macaques to the Sukabumi center."

Learning survival skills

She said although some animals could be released quite
quickly, most of them, such as monkeys that have been living with
people for a long time and which have not been introduced to
other primates, face a long rehabilitation process that could
take up to years.

"When people ask us how long does it take for a monkey to be
released into the wild, we answer that it completely depends on
the individual: how long it's been in captivity, and how long it
was with its mother before it was captured."

The main reason is that younger primates need to learn
survival skills for living in the forest. "If we receive a baby
that has been confiscated, then it never learned those skills
that he needs to survive from his mother," she said, adding that
macaques and gibbons stay with their mothers for six years.

The skills they need to survive, which they would have learned
from their mother, need to be learned through the rehabilitation
program, which is a very long and intensive process, she said.
"In addition, all primates are completely traumatized, because
they lose their mother in front of their eyes; that is the only
way a hunter can catch a baby gibbon."

As all the monkeys that arrive at the rescue center are
"mentally ill from living a life in isolation and being beaten",
she said the first step in their rehabilitation process was to
win back their trust and help them learn to become a monkey
again.

"Younger primates require more intensive care, especially
gibbons, which are extremely sensitive and sometimes require the
24-hour care of a substitute mother."

Primates also need to slowly adapt to a new diet, as former
pet owners would have fed them human food, such as rice, satay or
whatever else was around.

Wider educational function

Apart from directly rescuing animals in critical situations,
ProAnimalia provides animal welfare education, campaigns for
better protection of the macaques' and advises and assists local
governments and residents to find humane solutions to control
crop-raiding macaques.

Sanchez said there was hope in talking to children about the
dangers of owning wildlife as they in turn could influence their
parents, by making them feel ashamed about buying wildlife.

Owners and handlers of monkeys run the risk of contracting
transmittable diseases, such as herpes, hepatitis or
tuberculosis.

Sanchez stressed that educating children was important and
although the members of the NGO were working seven days a week at
the rescue center, they would be available to give a presentation
at schools if requested.

"Macaques are quite popular to keep as pets, but the problem
is once they turn four, five or six years old, they become
aggressive and people want to dump them," den Haas said.

What also is not known to the buyer is that for every macaque
that ends up as a pet, at least three others have been killed,
usually the mother and its relatives, as primates protect each
other.

In addition, 50 percent of all baby macaques caught in the
wild die from stress, deprivation or malnutrition. They also die
from infections or internal bleeding caused by a hunter's
bullets.

The group has in its care 40 macaques; 20 of them have been
rescued this year, and another 20 have been handed over to the
Sukabumi rescue center.

"We hope to make this program bigger, to raise enough funds to
help macaques on a bigger scale," den Haas said.

For further information, call the rescue center directly on
5554219, or visit ProAnimalia's website at www.ProAnimalia.org.