|
INSIGHT THE PRIMATE - MAMMALS
INCLUDE THE EXPERIENCED WITH THE PEOPLE OF THE FOREST.
Orangutans are large, intelligent great apes with medium long orange-brown fur,
large heads and sturdy bodies, long arms, short bowed legs, and no tails. Their
hands are similar to human hands with four long fingers and a thumb. Orangutans
walk on legs and arms, but are able to stand and walk short distances on two
legs. Both types of orangutans live in the tropical rainforest of Asia; one type
on the island of Borneo and the other on Sumatra. Both orangutan species are
endangered.
Orangutans are a special type of primate called a great ape. They stand 1.5m
tall at the shoulder (when on two legs). Orangutans, sometimes just called
orangs, are the largest arboreal mammals. They love it in the trees, and spend
most of their lives high above the floor of the rainforest.
Endangered orangutans live in a few isolated lowland tropical rainforests on the
islands of Sumatra and Borneo. There are between 12-15,000 Bornean orangutans
and less than 3,500 of the much rarer Sumatran orangutans. Both live in old
tropical rainforests with a lush dense growth of dipterocarp and other tropical
trees, at elevations up to 1,000m. Hot temperatures, daily rains, and humid
conditions characterize these tropical rainforests throughout much of the year.
Lifestyle
Adult orangutans are generally solitary, but they do communicate using hoots and
hollers. Males communicate with a special vocalization called a “long call”
(hear them in the MediaViewer). The long call can last up to two minutes and
starts with a series of roars, each getting louder, until the last begin fading
away like bubbling water. The long call is probably used to warn other males and
signal females during mating season.
Males are twice the size of females, weighing up to 90kg in the wild. Females
rarely reach 40kg.
Fruit is the orangutan's favorite food. Adult orangutans will sit and hang from
branches high in the tops of trees eating fruits and leaves most of the day.
They eat different parts of the plant depending on the time of year. During the
rainy season, when there is a lot of rain, orangutans munch mostly on the leaves
and new shoots of bamboo. Dry season means little rain and water and a diet of
tropical fruits like jackfruit, durian, figs and bark. They will also eat birds’
eggs, insects and small lizards. In captivity, orangutans are fed mostly fruits
and leafy plants like lettuce. An orang’s digestive system is more similar to
that of a carnivore than an herbivore, and so, much of what is eaten is passed
as poop. To make up for the inefficient digestion, an orangutan needs to consume
a comparatively large amount of food—up to 12kg of fruit, leaves and bark each
day—to get all its nutrients. To obtain this much food means that an orang must
spend 6-8 hours a day foraging and eating.
Orangutan Babies
Baby orangutans are similar to human babies – defenseless, cannot walk and need
the care and protection of their mother to survive. Female orangutans give birth
between 230 and 260 days after mating. Although females may give birth to two
young, twins are extremely rare.
Orangutan babies may stay with their mothers for up to eight years before
striking out on their own. In her lifetime, a female orangutan may successfully
raise only two or three babies. The orangutan’s naturally slow breeding rate
prevents a population from recovering quickly from illegal poaching, habitat
loss, and other human-related causes of mortality.
Growing Up
In the rainforest, orangutan young rarely see each other. Most young orangutans
grow up only knowing the company of their mother. Their mother must teach them
everything they need to know about surviving in the tropical rainforest, how to
build a day nest, which trees have the best leaves or fruit to eat, and which
areas of the forest to avoid.
One lesson is learning to build a nest. Once in the afternoon and once at night,
an orangutan will build a nest in the fork of tree branches high above the
ground. The nest is a layer of broken branches and is lined with fresh leaves,
and just big enough for one orangutan.
Around the age of eight, a young orangutan begins to move away from its mother
and create its own life. It will be another six or seven years before it is
fully grown. Female orangutans reach breeding maturity around 15 years of age.
They may continue reproducing until about age 40. In a lifetime, orangutans live
up to 60 years.
Orangutan Anatomy
Orangutans are one of the few mammals in the world that have orange-colored fur.
They have a very specialized anatomy, linking them to the rainforest and a life
in the treetops.
Orangs and People
In Borneo, people and orangutans have been living together for thousands of
years. In fact, the name orang utan means “old man [or person] of the forest”.
Because orangutans are so intelligent and babies look so cute, people sometimes
think they will make good pets. But, they are not meant to be taken from their
wild forests. This is called poaching and contributes to the “illegal pet trade”
and is one of the most serious problems orangutans face in their struggle to
survive.
The illegal pet trade in orangutans and many other types of wildlife is,
unfortunately, very common in Indonesia and throughout Southeast Asia. Every
year, hundreds of adult female orangutans are killed and their babies are sold
into the illegal pet trade. Many baby orangs die before they become pets; as
many as 4 out of 5 young orangs may die from stress and disease in the first few
months after being caught. Indonesian and Malaysian laws exist to protect
endangered wildlife species, but often the enforcement of these laws is very
difficult. In order for law enforcement officials to be able to confiscate
illegally held orangutans, they must find them and have a place to bring them
where they will be protected. The protective places are called rehabilitation
centers. Those such as Sepilok Orangutan Rehabilitation Center and Wanariset
Orangutan Rehabilitation Center in Borneo are critical to the survival of
orangutans and returning confiscated orangs back to the wild.
Protecting Tropical Rainforest Protects Orangutans
Orangutans are losing more of their tropical rainforest home each year. Habitat
loss due to deforestation has become one of the greatest threats to orangutan
survival. Tropical rainforests are cut for wood and to create farms such as palm
oil tree plantations. Sumatran rainforests are disappearing very fast and on
that island the orangutans are disappearing faster than those in Borneo, but
both types are in great danger of extinction. There are only about 3,500
Sumatran orangutans left in the world.
The relationship between orangutans and people has changed dramatically over the
past 100 years. The tropical rainforests are under increasing pressure by
loggers, farmers and large agriculture companies. More people pressure means
less land is left as wild tropical rainforest, which orangutans must have to
survive.
The most damaging development has been dividing the orangutan’s habitat into
little patches of forest, like little islands. Today, many orangs are isolated
in these small islands of forest because they will not enter open habitats. The
result is they cannot connect with one another to mate and have babies.
Instead of cutting the forests, some people take visitors on hikes in the
forests. People are trying to help the orangutans to survive by creating
protected areas and rehabilitation centers.
Together, Indonesia and Malaysia have five officially designated areas for
protecting and rehabilitating orangutans; all areas are in the lowland tropical
rainforests of Sumatra and Borneo.
Borneo's tropical rainforest is an extraordinary and beautiful place full of
other rare mammals, exotic birds, insects and plants found nowhere else in the
world. The rainforests of Borneo and Sumatra are some of the oldest in the
world, over 80 million years old, and contain many species not yet known. The
orangutan is called an umbrella species. Protecting the orangutans protects the
habitat for many other wildlife and plant species that people overlook but which
are critical to the biodiversity of the tropical rainforest.
THE EXPERIENCE OF ORANGUTAN RIVER SAFARI TRIP IN CENTRE OF BORNEO
Once at anchor near a funky fuel dock across the river from the town of Kumai,
Paul, Francis, Terry and the Captain were in a mood to sit in a restaurant, have
a cold beer, and shake off the passage from Bali. Gilang, the guide we had
hired, picked us up on the same boat we were to use on the trip to see the
monkeys and orangutans, and ferried us over to the wharf where the local fishing
fleet of large boats with a radical sheer were moored. Wedging the African
Queen-style launch between the fleet and some other smaller, old-fashioned
wooden boats, we clambered over the decks of a couple of them in the dark and
pouring rain to a walkway consisting of loose and rotting one-by-tens between
unpainted, ramshackle, clapboard buildings, and gained the main street.
The short but densely adventurous trip from the boat to the street was archaic
and foreign enough, and the street made one feel as if he were in a frontier
outpost in 1850. There were no streetlights. Various small wooden structures
housed establishments, of indeterminate function, that were dimly lit by
lanterns if they were lit at all. Through the heavy rain and gloom, it was
possible to see that many had people sitting inside, talking and eating. These
were snack bars, selling only tea and some small portions of chicken satay or
whatever was the specialty. Gilang led us to believe that the main attraction of
these places, beside the food, was conversation with the youngish woman who
would serve the customers.
The choice of restaurants for a full dinner was limited, but as we walked down
the street through the mud puddles Gilang chose what looked like it might be the
biggest place in town, with a seating capacity of perhaps fifteen. We entered
and took off our foul weather gear that seemed like fancy city-folk attire in
comparison to the dress of the locals. Choosing we knew not what from the
unheated steam trays, we found the food-rice, fried chicken, vegetables,
noodles--quite palatable. When we first arrived, the small room was faintly lit
by the glow of a kerosene lamp, but upon our arrival the proprietor ignited the
brighter Coleman knock-off and this lent a little more cheer to the scene.
Beer, however, was not available. This was a Muslim town in a Muslim country,
and even if we had not been in the middle of Ramadan, alcohol is illegal. Gilang
said its illegality had as much to do with controlling crime and rowdiness as it
did religion. The prohibition applied de facto primarily to the poor, because
rich Muslims who could afford to go the nice restaurant in the nearby, larger
town of Pangkalanbun could get it, although I don't remember its being on the
menu. Gilang took us there on another night and it was no problem to order beer,
Ramadan or no Ramadan. Bootleg whiskey could also be purchased by asking around.
What was required in Kumai to break the law with impunity is not unique to
Borneo: discretion and money.
Bali was strange, but self-consciously so. Tourism is big business and Balinese
art, dance, and music have long since discovered their appeal to an audience
beyond the small island of their origin. But Kumai is not a tourist town. They
have seen tourists, but because it is a bit difficult to get here from the
outside world, the majority of these are yachters on the way from Bali to
Singapore, and this is a pretty small number of people. We saw no other
westerners during the six days we were there. There are no tourist facilities at
all, except the river travel arranged by the guides, and one wilderness lodge
catering to monkey seekers, up the river, closed now for the season. There are
no ATMs & Internet in Kumai and only in Pangkalanbun; and Kumai to PangkalanBun
takes 30 Minutes. The exotic feeling of Kumai stems from its being just what it
is, an isolated town in a strange land, far from anywhere you've ever been and
practicing customs you've never heard of. We saw some men playing dominoes, but
they weren't gambling in the normal sense. When you lost, you had to stick a
clothespin somewhere on your body. These men had them on their faces. Evidently,
you play for the pleasure of seeing the other fellow's pain, and as we'll see in
a later missive, this was a comparatively benign cultural element.
On the other hand, there are satellite dishes, and small stores selling lots of
DVDs, which seem to be the main form of entertainment. This naturally led the
Captain to ask the sophisticated Gilang about acquiring the latest album by our
favorite recording artist, and I think the reader knows to whom I refer. I
complained to him that in Bali, we saw no Britney posters at all, and my query
was really just in jest since I in fact was sure that our girl's fame could not
have penetrated the primitive jungle towns of Borneo. He just lit right up, and
said, "She's bloody beautiful." He regaled us with all the latest news,
including Britney's new movie and tour, and something about her being set up
with one of those sons of Prince Charles. I was all aflutter, you can be sure.
He said I just didn't look in the right places in Bali, and before we left,
Gilang presented me with a parting gift of the "Oops! I Did It Again" CD, that
he bought somewhere around here. (By the way, am I the only one that thinks this
new, heavily made-up sexpot phase our Britney is going through seems pathetic?
Leave that stuff to the girls who really mean it.) Now it turned out it was a
bootleg and also had some tracks by that pretender to the throne, Mandy Moore.
Southeast Asia is the land of bootlegs. Some nights the electricity was on in
town, and though, oddly, this didn't do much to change the lighting situation,
the restaurant where we had become accustomed to taking our evening meal had the
DVD going. On it was a karaoke Beatles tape, with real Beatles music but actors
playing the role of the Beatles. I wonder how much dough Sir Paul collects for
that one.
I took a lot of pictures of Kumai, but you can't hear the sounds and smell the
smells and see how people relate to you and others. You can't hear the girls
say, "Hey, MistER" as you walk by. (These are not prostitutes but are curious or
perhaps hawkers, wishing to attract you to their eating establishment.) You
can't see the traffic going one way for a while down the street, and then later
going the other way, with no signal from anywhere to notify the uninformed of
the change.
At night, the muezzin in the mosque would sing the Koran from distorted
loudspeakers. To become one of the singers is an honor, and auditions are held.
There are established ways of singing, and phrasing, and it must be done
properly. But at anchor across the river, we could hear the singing from four or
five different mosques simultaneously, and the combined effect was eerie. They
began at sundown, at the same time people lit off firecrackers to celebrate the
end of the day's fast. (The end of fasting for the day was announced on VHF
channel 16!) The singing continued without pause until dawn.
People were friendly and a little curious, but not invasively so and certainly
not threatening in any way. We, like Paul, have decided it feels too lame to do
as some cruisers have suggested, and claim to be Canadians, so we just tell them
we're from America. This from time to time elicits a joke about the Captain's
beard and Osama, and much laughter. |
