Baby orangutan rescued after being kept as a pet

Yahoo – AFP, February 23, 2017

Seven-month-old Vena was rescued by wildlife officals and environmentalists
from someone who had illegally kept her as a pet (AFP Photo/ADEK BERRY)

Baby primate Vena shyly turned her head away from a bottle as two vets tried to feed her, the latest Bornean orangutan rescued in Indonesia after being kept as a pet.

Villagers on the Indonesian part of jungle-clad Borneo island often keep the critically endangered apes as pets even though the practice is illegal.

Wildlife officials and environmentalists rescued seven-month-old Vena earlier in February from someone in Kendawangan district who had been looking after her.

Vena is now being cared for at a centre run by NGO International Animal Rescue (IAR), whose staff ensure she stays clean by regularly changing her diapers and feed her bottles of milk mixed with vitamin supplements.

Last year IAR saved 22 orangutans that were either kept as pets or whose natural jungle habitat had been destroyed by huge forest fires started to clear land for plantations.

Even when they are well looked after, such as in Vena's case, environmentalists stress keeping orangutans as pets is bad because it means they will later struggle to survive in the wild.

"Many people don't realise that keeping orangutans as pets is illegal and could make them lose their instincts for living in the wild," said Ruswanto, an official from the wildlife protection agency who like many Indonesians goes by one name.

Villagers on the Indonesian part of jungle-clad Borneo island often keep

orangutans as pets even though the practice is illegal (AFP Photo/ADEK BERRY)

Vena was being kept as a pet by a lady called Bariah, who found the ape in a neighbouring village. She was rescued after villagers reported the case to authorities.

It was the second time Bariah, a mother of seven, was caught illegally caring for a baby ape -- she already had to give one up to IAR in 2016.

"I know orangutans are protected, I was not killing or harming them, I was only taking care of them," the 50-year-old told AFP.

After being rescued, young apes are sent to a "jungle school", where they spend years learning to fend for themselves before being released into the wild.

Rampant logging and the rapid expansion of paper and palm oil operations have reduced their habitat, with about 100,000 estimated to remain in the wild on Borneo, which is divided between Indonesia, Malaysia and Brunei.

The International Union for the Conservation of Nature last year changed its classification of the Bornean orangutan from "endangered" to "critically endangered".

Calves more likely to die in first year; 350,000 did so in 2015

DutchNews, February 13, 2017    

Tens of thousands of calves which are taken away from their mothers in the days after they are born die in the first year of life and the death rate is getting worse, the Volkskrant said on Monday. 

In 2015, 13.3% of registered calves died within 12 months of being removed from their mothers – a total of 350,000 animals, the paper said. 

In 2009, the death rate was 9%, a figure described at the time by animal health experts as too high. Most calves are taken from their mothers within three days of birth and the males are almost always sold on to beef and veal farmers. 

Animal rights organisation Dier & Recht said the care of newborn calves may have been affected by the increasing size of dairy farms in the Netherlands.

‘As farms get bigger, there is little attention for individual calves,’ said vet and Dier & Recht spokesman Frederieke Schouten. 

The lobby group wants dairy cooperative Friesland Campina to put pressure on its farmers to try to stop so many calves dying.