World Animal Day

Posted by: Admin | October 9, 2018

Wildlife at Tasikoki

Thomas Gomersall

Founded by the Gibbon Foundation as part of a series of wildlife rescue centres, the Tasikoki Wildlife Rescue and Education Centre is uniquely placed to help tackle the illegal wildlife trade because of its location on Indonesia’s northernmost island, Sulawesi. Wildlife traffickers from the Philippines and eastern Indonesia frequently stop off at Sulawesi with their goods. Sulawesi also has a vibrant bush meat trade in primates, pigs and forest wild cattle. This makes it a prime target for the authorities to carry out raids and confiscate trafficked animals. But of course, all of these animals, many of which are in poor condition after the trauma of capture and transportation, need somewhere to be nursed back to health and looked after while the details of their (hopeful) release to the wild are worked out. And that’s where Tasikoki comes in.

Currently, the centre is home to over 500 animals from across Indonesia and with the wildlife trade showing no signs of slowing down, that number is constantly growing. So, with World Animal Day upon us, it seems like the perfect time to talk about some of the spectacular species that are housed at Tasikoki.

Crested Black Macaque: Macaques are some of the most problematic animals at Tasikoki, mainly because of the difficulties in releasing them. As well as a scarcity of suitable habitat, these monkeys are widely hated by local people as crop pests and eaten as bush meat, leading to little socio-political support for their release despite them being a critically endangered species. So, with few macaques being released and more rescued ones coming in all the time, the centre is constantly having to expand and upgrade the enclosures for them. The Masarang Foundation is preparing to fence in several hundred hectares of forest on the Masarang Mountain to release many of the macaques presently at Tasikoki.

Sun Bear:When people think of places to find bears, they usually think of foaming waterfalls in Alaska or the grassy plains of Yellowstone National Park, not a tropical rainforest. Yet that is just the place to find the sun bear, the world’s smallest species. Named for the golden, crescent shaped patch on its chest, this bear is found across South East Asia from Northeast India to Indonesia, although habitat destruction and hunting for the use of their gallbladders in the Chinese medicine trade means that they are not common in any of the countries where they are found. Insects form a large part of their diet and they will often use their claws to break into rotting wood and termite mounds in search of them.

Babirusa:Also known as deer pigs, babirusas are endemic to Sulawesi and its surrounding islands. Anatomically they are internally quite different from pigs. In a family of the animals with large, odd looking tusks, babirusas are undoubtedly the strangest looking, with the males possessing four backward curving tusks that curl back so far, they have even been known to pierce the animal’s skin. This unique appearance has even inspired the designs of demonic masks among local craftsmen. Unlike many pigs, which can have very large litters, a female babirusa usually only has one or two piglets per litter. This along with the species’ limited global distribution makes it especially vulnerable to bush meat hunting and habitat loss

Cassowary: Though often associated with the far north of Australia, cassowaries are also found on the Indonesian island of Papua. These flightless birds have a reputation for being violent and dangerous, as they possess a 5 inch long, razor sharp claw on their middle toe that is capable of killing any animal it is kicked at. However, in reality they prefer to avoid conflict and most ‘attacks’ on humans are done by birds who are defending their young or themselves, or birds who have been fed by humans in the past and kick out of frustration when they are not given the food they have come to expect from humans. Furthermore, of the 150 known cassowary attacks on humans, only one has been fatal.

Orangutan: No list of Indonesian wildlife would be complete without the Old Man of the Forest. But this endearing nickname for one of our closest relatives has done little to improve its increasingly dire plight. It is estimated that every day, 25 orangutans are killed for reasons relating to the expansion of palm oil plantations into their habitat. Those that survive are often killed by villagers for crop raiding or by poachers in order to steal their babies for the pet trade. Many of these unfortunates will then be shipped to as far away as France or the USA, where they will be subjected to unnatural living conditions and treated like a living toy instead of an intelligent, traumatised being. But for the lucky ones seized in Sulawesi, a different fate awaits at Tasikoki. Here they are treated with the respect and real love they deserve and so desperately need. Here they are given as much enrichment as their growing minds need. And it is here where, with time, dedication and no small amount of good luck, they are prepared for their eventual return to the wild.