Ragunan primate enclosure to be enlarged 3 hectares

Ahmad Junaidi, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

Governor Sutiyoso agreed on Thursday to the planned expansion of a primate center at Ragunan Zoo in South Jakarta.

The expansion will be funded by the Howletts and Port Lymphne Animal Park Foundation of Britain.

The primate center's supervisor, Willie Smits, said the center would be extended from 13.2 hectares to 16.2 hectares. The extension will completed by the end of this month.

"There will be a three-hectare expansion, 1.5 hectares for the orangutan cage and the remaining for the chimpanzee cage," Smits told reporters after meeting Governor Sutiyoso at City Hall.

Smits, who was accompanied by the Howletts foundation director Peter Hitchfield and Ragunan Zoo director Edy Sunarto, revealed they would build caves and bridges and plant big trees within the enclosures to make the primates feel at home.

Without mentioning the cost of the expansion, he said it would be financed by the Howletts foundation, which has lent four male gorillas to the center.

"The city will pay nothing. We've even contributed hundreds of millions of rupiah to the city revenue office," Smits, who also chairs the Gibbon Foundation, said.

He said the hundreds of millions of rupiah had been collected from visitors to the center in the three months that it had been opened to the public.

He hoped the number of visitors to the zoo could increase from the current average of 90,000 people per day to 150,000 people per day after the expansion.

Entrance to the primate center costs Rp 5,000, which is in addition to the Rp 3,000 per adult and Rp 2,000 per child entrance fee to the zoo.

The existing gorilla enclosure, which cost Rp 10 billion, was provided by the Gibbon foundation, which was founded by animal lover the late Mrs. Puck Schmutzer.

The center initially created controversy because the city administration announced that it would allocate Rp 3 billion per annum for the maintenance of the gorillas at a time when the city was still suffering from the economic crisis. The allocation was finally canceled because it was estimated that ticket sales would generate enough funds to cover the maintenance.

Smits revealed that he planned to establish a gorilla family in the center, for which purpose female gorillas would be brought in. The center's four gorillas are all male, named Kihi, Kimbou, Kijou and Kumao, and are reportedly between four years old and six years old.

"But we have to build another cage for three gorillas as only one gorilla can become 'head' of the female gorillas," he said.

He said the dominant gorilla had silver on his back. The other three gorillas would be separated from him once the females were brought into the center.

According to the book A Praise of Primates by Steve Bloom, female gorillas reach reproductive age at nine years of age. Gorillas can live up to fifty years of age.