Shy proboscis monkey extremely endangered

Shy proboscis monkey extremely endangered

By Hasan Zainuddin

BANJARMASIN, South Kalimantan (Antara): The large fair-haired,
red-skinned bekantan (proboscis monkey) covered its long nose
with its hands when it realized a person was watching it. Then
slowly it inched away and disappeared into the thick jungle in
its natural habitat.

"The monkey is extremely shy. If you want to have a look at
it, you should take your time, waiting for them from a secret
vantage point," said Achmad Arifin, a bekantan watcher.

Proboscis monkeys live in groups, each being led by a male
monkey which stands out with its large size. Males have pot
bellies and long noses and can be as big as a human adult.

The female monkey is slimmer and her nose is quite flat. A
baby bekantan is usually red and most of the time clings to its
mother's belly.

The monkey's colony is easy to locate as they make noisy
"huuh...huh" sounds when the males are fighting or just pulling
each others' legs.

Nasty monkeys upset farmers living near the forest, who often
find their bananas in the garden stolen and the stems broken,
unable to bear the animal's weight. That is why the monkeys are
considered pests and are shooed back to the forest.

Some people, unaware the animals are highly endangered, have
often scared the monkeys by attacking them. Others will catch the
monkey's and their babies and then sell them.

"The monkeys will usually run for their lives when they see
people. The smaller monkeys will leap from branch to branch and
the large ones will come down to the ground and sprint as fast as
they can," Achmad said.

Experts say that the bekantan is easily stressed and highly
sensitive to changes in its environment. Very few proboscis
monkeys, dubbed monyet bule or white ape, can be kept as domestic
pets.
It is extremely difficult to be breed the animals in captivity.

The monkeys eat mostly leaves. They eat less fruit because too
much sugar forces their stomachs to ferment food and this leads
to suffocation.

This was what happened to the 86 bekantan captured in Pulau
Kaget in Barito Kuala. The animals were intended for a breeding
program at Surabaya Zoo. Due to the lack of understanding about
the animals' eating habits, 37 of them died.

Endangered

Logging has increasingly threatened the monkeys' survival in
the Kalimantan jungle.

Forests in Pulau Kaget, a 267 hectare delta in the Barito
river which has become the animals' main colony, is also severely
threatened.

Since 1997, more and more rambai (soneratha cosiolaris) trees,
which provide tasty leaves for the monkeys, have been lost due to
agricultural activities. Environmental activists say that only
182 hectares of rambai is left.

This has raised the alarm for the survival of the species
which has been protected by law since 1972. South Kalimantan
Governor Gusti Hasan Aman sought cooperation with the Banjarmasin
based Lambung Mangkurat University and the local forestry office
for a joint study to save the animals.

Reforestation that the researchers initiated has ended in
failure as the new trees did not grow as expected.

The efforts to relocate 117 of the estimated 127 bekantan on
Pulau Kaget to Surabaya Zoo and other places had also ended in
disaster. According to the official account, 37 died in the
breeding ground and another 25 died on their way from Kalimantan
to Surabaya.

The death of so many monkeys has provoked strong protests from
environmentalists. Activists of the Malang based KSBK (Animal
Conservation for Life) staged a demonstration at Surabaya Zoo.
They demanded that the zoo management return the remaining
monkeys to their natural habitat in Kalimantan.

But the protest fell on deaf ears and it is feared that all
the bekantan sent to the zoo have died.

"A thorough study on the animals should have been conducted
before they decided to move the animals to the zoo," Achmad said.

Arifin also questioned the motive behind the zoo management's
intention to breed so many monkeys instead of a small number of
couples. Besides, a place like Tanjung Puting in Central
Kalimantan would be a better location than Surabaya for the
project.

Environmentalists also demanded that the zoo authorities
produce the remains of the monkeys they claimed have died because
the remains of any protected animal that dies in captivity must
be reported to the public. Some suspect that the animals had been
sold abroad for research purposes.