Persecuted for palm oil

Sutanta Aditya, a photographer who works with AFP, took these astonishing photos of a critically endangered Sumatran orangutan being treated at conservation centre in western Indonesia after the primate was found with air gun pellets embedded in his body. Aditya describes how he saw the creature being treated.

 

A staff member at the Sumatran Orangutan Conservation Programme examines
 a 14-year-old male orangutan found with air gun pellets embedded in his body, in
 Sibolangit district, northern Sumatra island, April 16, 2014. (AFP Photo/Sutanta
Aditya)

AFP, Sutanta Aditya, April 22, 2014

MEDAN, Indonesia, April 22, 2014 — The orangutan had been sedated before health workers carried it on a stretcher to the operating table. It lay totally motionless, even when another photographer used a strong flash to take its picture.

The primate had already undergone surgery to remove a pellet from its right thigh, now health workers wanted to carry out a blood test, take a hair sample and conduct an X-ray to check for broken bones.

The vets had real trouble trying get the enormous and very drowsy orangutan upright for the X-ray. Four men, each holding on to one of its limbs, had to lift it off the table and get it to stand up.

Staff members X-ray the 14-year-old male orangutan found with air gun
metal pellets embedded in his body. (AFP Photo/Sutanta Aditya)

When they finally had the primate on its feet, they realised there was no one free to turn on the X-ray machine, so they had to call in someone else to help them.

After the tests were successfully concluded, the orangutan was taken to an enclosure at the centre.

He was treated at a centre run by the Sumatran Orangutan Conservation Programme (SOCP) in North Sumatra province.

The organisation said the orangutan, named Angelo, is around 14 years old and was rescued from an isolated patch of forest in North Sumatra by the government conservation agency and another group, the Orangutan Information Centre.

A veterinary staff member checks the orangutan's teeth. (AFP Photo/
Sutanta Aditya)

The land surrounding the forest had been cleared, mainly to make way for palm oil plantations, a practise that is common across the island of Sumatra. The edible oil is used in numerous everyday goods, from biscuits to shampoo, but is blamed for rampant deforestation in Sumatra and other parts of the Indonesian archipelago.

The SOCP said if Angelo had not been rescued, he would not have survived in such an isolated patch of forest, and the pellets in his body showed that local villagers had already been shooting at him.

He will be released back into the wild once he has spent 30 days in quarantine and is deemed to be fit and well, the group said.

A baby male orangutan named Siboy at the Sumatran Orangutan Conservation
 Programme, which has helped over 280 orangutans rescued from palm oil plantations,
 poachers and pet owners. Over 200 have been reintroduced to the wild. (AFP Photo/
Sutanta Aditya)

This photograph taken on February 24, 2014 during an aerial survey mission
 by Greenpeace at East Kotawaringin district in Central Kalimantan province on
 Indonesia's Borneo Island, shows trees cleared for palm oil. (AFP Photo/
Bay Ismoyo)

Aditya is based based in Medan, the capital of North Sumatra province, and has been working with AFP for more than five years.