Life lessons for orangutan orphans
The rehabilitation of young orangutans captured in Indonesia after the death of their mothers was a major topic at this year’s Australasian Primate Society’s conference, held at the University of Queensland in March.
As part of her bachelor of Applied Science at UQ and the Centre for Animal Welfare and Ethics, Kris Descovich spent five months in Indonesia completing a study on the behaviour of orangutans during the rehabilitation process.
Orangutans share many similar characteristics with humans including long ‘childhoods’. Wild orangutans closely attach to their mother until approximately eight or nine years old and learn their jungle survival skills from her during this time. However, increasing logging and deforestation of the jungle in Indonesia results in many baby or young orangutans being orphaned as their mothers are either accidentally or deliberately killed as they approach villages looking for food.
Much of the logging in the jungles is illegal; however the newest and greatest threat to orangutan conservation is the spread of palm oil plantations. Palm oil is a highly lucrative crop; the oil is exported to many countries, including Australia, where it is used extensively in the commercial manufacture of biscuits, potato chips and other processed foods, and in the fast food industry for frying, as well as in many soap products.
Palm oil production often involves the unnecessary clearing of native forest resulting in wild animals come closer to the plantations looking for food. Some villagers kill the orangutans for meat –‘jungle meat’, others because baby orangutans are a high status symbol as pets for wealthy Indonesians. However, Descovich says that many kill adult orangutans simply out of fear.
Such is the fierce attachment of the mother orangutan to her child that it is inevitable the young animals will be orphaned, she says, as “there is no way the mother would let you take the juvenile.”
Indonesia has a series of rehabilitation centres for these orphaned juvenile animals, and the Australian Orangutan Project, with whom Descovich works, partners with the organisations that run the centres and provide financial assistance through an infant sponsorship scheme. Because the young animals are so dependent on close interaction with an adult, there are generally 120 local staff members to 200-300 rehabilitating orangutans.
Most of the orangutans in the centre are aged between two and seven years old with some arriving as young as two months old. They stay until they reach independent age when they are released back into the jungle; however Descovich says that identifying suitable release sites is becoming increasingly difficult with the current rate of native habitat destruction.
Kris descovitch with Mitchell, a three year old orphan
Descovich studied over 40 juvenile orangutans at the rehabilitation centre in Central Kalimantan. Her study included a five-month investigation of a number of aspects of the rehabilitation process, as well as observing the behaviour of pre-adolescent orangutans as they were introduced back into a small area of forest under the guidance of their carers. She observed that the animal’s health, weight, sex, social group and the amount of time spent in rehabilitation had significant effects on its behaviour during reintroduction to the forest.
For several hours each day, the young animals were taken to a semi-wild forest area where they could forage for plants to eat, climb the trees, and gather nesting material, all in a controlled situation. They would be given their midday feed of fruit, rice or milk, but could also forage for other fruits and plants. As a grazing animal, orangutans would normally spend a lot of time each day foraging and eating.
While in the wild, the young orangutans would spend most of their time with their mothers. Descovich says that rehab centres need to take on this surrogate role by showing the animals what to eat or where to find nesting materials. The infants are also socially grouped, allowing juveniles who might have stayed longer with their mothers before they were separated to demonstrate their better survival skills and pass these skills on to less confident ones.
A young female exploring a ‘semi-wild’ forest
When the animals initially arrive at the rehabilitation centre, they require a period of quarantine and often treatment for malnutrition and trauma. Injuries can include missing limbs, machete and chainsaw cuts, burns from being doused in petrol and set alight, and sometimes bite wounds from other orangutans. They may also be tested and treated for a range of zoonoses such as tuberculosis, ringworm or intestinal worms as well as undergoing regular weighing and measuring. The Australian Orangutan Project has partnered with AusAid to fund two Melbourne vets currently working within Indonesian orangutan rehabilitation centres.
Occasionally, the centres get the chance to re-locate a healthy, wild adult orangutan from a palm or rubber plantation. These animals are quite dangerous and could easily kill a human, so often require tranquilisation before being moved. However, Descovich stresses that although orangutans will defend themselves when threatened, they are generally not aggressive animals.
By determining the optimum age and weight at which the orangutans should be released, it is hoped that more orangutans will be successfully reintroduced into their natural habitat in Indonesian forests.
“We need to ensure that each orangutan is provided with the correct education and possesses the physical attributes required to be reintroduced to the wild if we are to see this species survive the effects of deforestation,” she says.
As the orangutans’ natural habitat shrinks, finding suitable release sites is becoming more difficult. Descovich points out that the shrinking jungle is a human rights issue as well as an animal welfare one, as people living a traditional hunter-gatherer lifestyle are also displaced by the palm oil plantations. This is an issue that will require a great deal more study if the ‘man of the forest’ is to survive.
For more information, please visit www.orangutan.org.au