Orphan Orangutan Rescue

On Monday evening our team in Sumatra received a report from a local farmer in Meka Makmur village, of an orphaned orangutan.
The story is conveyed by Putup (a RARE-OIC staff member); the farmer found the young orangutan in his durian tree. After hearing the orangutan crying, and searching for his mother, he decided that the orangutan was stressed as he had been "abandoned" by her. The farmer therefore climbed the durian tree, and gently teased the orphan to the ground. He then placed the orangutan in a small hut on his farmland before returning home for the evening.
The next morning the farmer returned to his hut bringing fruit and sweet tea for the orangutan. The orphan lived in this hut for a day or so until the farmer built him a small cage. One week later the farmer got in touch with Puput, telling him he had an orangutan and how he had come across it.

Miran from OIC was part of the urgent response team

That day we deployed two of the Human Orangutan Conflict Response Unit team, Rabin and Rudi, to verify this report. They joined Puput to go to the farmland where they found the orangutan and confirmed it is a one-year-old male. Within a couple of hours the team had removed the orphan from his cage and headed to an orangutan rescue and rehabilitation centre.

It is important to remember that infant orangutans are highly dependant on their mothers for survival and development, they stay with her for at least five years in order to learn enough to survive in the forest. The care of such a young orphan needs to be conducted by a trained orangutan rescue centre.

In order to obtain an infant for the pet trade, the mothers are killed. It has been estimated that for every infant that survives the process of capture and transport, at least 3 others will have been lost, and each of these infants also represents the death of an adult female orangutan. We do not know what happened with this infant’s mother, if she was killed accidentally or on purpose. The one thing we do know is that she would have never voluntarily left her baby’s side, and she would have put up a fight if someone tried to take him away.

The young orphan is now in safe hands, in the care of the Sumatran Orangutan Conservation Programme (SOCP) at their rescue centre just outside Medan.

Here at the SOS, we are continuously fundraising in order to keep all our projects rolling. It is important to find more money for human orangutan conflict mitigation, as well as our ongoing conservation work.

There are many ways you can help fund our projects: become a member, make a donation, leave a legacy, or fundraise for us. You can see more photos from the rescue on our Facebook page.

Background information:
Organizational information:
The Human Orangutan Conservation Response Unit (HOCRU) is trained specifically to deal with situations where orangutan and human interests conflict. It is a collaboration between SOS, the Orangutan Information Centre (OIC), SOCP and the Government. HOCRU works closely with our OIC community conservation team, identifying current and potential problems and how best to solve them. All SOS projects in Sumatra operate trough the Orangutan Information Centre (OIC), and SOCP deals with all rescues and rehabilitations of orangutans in Sumatra.

Illegal trading:
In theory, orangutans are protected in Sumatra by legislation dating from 1931, which prohibits the owning, killing, or capture of orangutans. In practice, poachers still hunt them, mostly for the pet trade. In international law, orangutans are listed on Appendix I of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES), prohibiting unlicensed trade due to the conservation status of the species in the wild. However, there is a huge local, national, and international demand for infant orangutans to be kept as pets. The maximum penalty for keeping an orangutan captive is 5 years in jail and 100 million rupiah fine (approx £7,500).

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Pedal Power Cinema

Hi, My name is Suzanne Turnock and for the past two months I have been funded by The Vodafone Foundation to work with SOS. I entered a competition called ‘Vodafone- World of Difference’, the prize was to work with a charity of your choice for two months and all wages are paid by Vodafone. I jumped at the chance and I knew straight away who I wanted to work with. I have been the Volunteer Fundraising Officer for The Great Apes Film Initiative (GAFI) since June 2009, SOS is one of GAFI’s partners and have worked together for the past 5 years.
I saw this opportunity as I chance to organise the SOS and GAFI Pedal Power Cinema project in Sumatra. So for the past two months I have been organising and fundraising for the project, based at the SOS UK headquarters in Oxford. One of my main goals was to organise a Pedal Power Cinema event in Oxford, to raise funds and to raise awareness about SOS and GAFI’s work. This event took place on the 10th March at Oxford Brookes University. Using Pedal Power Cinema, we screened Patrick Rouxel’s ‘Losing Tomorrow’, a poetical film on the habitat of orangutans and an insight into the logging industry in Indonesia and ‘Dear Mr President’, a short film created at the request of local communities in Sumatra. World renowned Conservationist, Ian Redmond OBE was our special guest speaker for the evening and David Smith, Olympic Athlete on the GB Rowing Team, started the pedalling for us. We also had a raffle, refreshments and merchandise for sale. From the feedback we have received so far, it seems like this was a really successful event and guests were interested and excited about using Pedal Power Cinema for conservation education.

During my time with SOS, I have been writing grant applications, liaising with the team in the field to organise the project and helping Helen out with the day to day running of SOS when needed. I also helped out with the SOS collection day in February at Victoria Station in London.

This project has the potential to expand on SOS’ conservation education programmes in Sumatra. The Pedal Power Cinema can be taken to remote communities, which often lack electricity and show wildlife films to local people, who may have never seen an orangutan or are not aware of the need to protect the critically endangered species. Film screenings attract large crowds, therefore providing a unique opportunity to deliver powerful and effective conservation messages as well as providing a platform for people to raise their conservation concerns. Once we have received the required funding for this project, it can begin.

I finished my two month placement with SOS on 12th March. I am really proud of what I have achieved in a small amount of time and I have enjoyed every minute of working with the SOS team. I chose SOS as I believed they are an organisation that works tirelessly, with passion and determination, to save the Sumatran orangutan and their habitat from extinction- and they proved me right.

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