Wahyoe Boediwardhana, The Jakarta Post, Malang

In the past two years, Unyil, 6, has only been able to exercise by swinging from one rope to another in a square enclosure at the Animal Rescue Center in Petungsewu, Malang, East Java.

It is uncertain how long the male Kalimantan orangutan (Pongo pygmaeus) will remain in the eight meters square enclosure.

This is because all of the enclosures in the orangutan reintroduction center in Nyaru Menteng, which is about 30 kilometers away from Palangkaraya, the capital of Central Kalimantan, are full — there is no room for any newcomer.

“I heard the center still has about 630 orangutans that have yet to be released into the wild,” Iwan Kurniawan, the coordinator of the Animal Rescue Center (PPS) in Petungsewu told The Jakarta Post in December.

Unyil is one of four Kalimantan orangutans that are still “in transit” at PPS Petungsewu. Besides Unyil, there is 4-year-old Jackson, 5-year-old Boni and 13-year-old Noni.

Some of the orangutans were delivered to the rescue center by concerned citizens, while the rest arrived with Natural Resources Conservation officers who had confiscated the primates from their unlawful owners.

The orangutans at PPS Petungsewi are not alone in their plight. Those in other Animal Rescue Centers like PPS Jogjakarta, PPS Cikananga, West Java, and PPS Tasikoki in Minahasa, North Sulawesi, share the same fate, according to Iwan.

“This is an important area. Rescue centers are temporary transit shelters and we don’t specialize in handling orangutans. Ironically, the Nyaru Menteng center is overcrowded because there are very few places where we can safely release the orangutans,” Iwan said.

Despite being legally protected in Indonesia, orangutans are often hunted, killed, orphaned, injured or sold into captivity.

According to 2004 data from the International Workshop on Population Habitat Viability Analysis (PHVA), the population of orangutans in Kalimantan was 57,797, while Sumatra had an orangutan population of 7,501.

Hundreds of orangutans in Nyaru Menteng have not been released to the wilderness due to the lack of tropical forest area that is safe, suitable and appropriate for orangutan habitat, according to Rosek Nursahid, the chairman and founder of ProFauna International.

The official website of the Nyaru Menteng center says they have not released any rehabilitated orangutan since 1999. At present, 38 orangutans (including six child orangutans) are deemed ready for release.

According to Rosek, the problem has much to do with the loss of rainforest in the country — the orangutans stronghold — due to illegal logging, forest fires and the clearance of forest for housing, farming and plantations.

As of 2000, the natural orangutan habitat in Indonesia had reduced from 340,000 hectares to 165,000 hectares.

“The government must protect the orangutans after they are released. Otherwise the rehabilitation process is for nothing,” Rosek said.

The government, through the Forestry Ministry, says it has worked hard to develop a national strategy and action plan for orangutans.

Yet, Rosek said the launching of the Conservation Strategy and Action Plan for Indonesian Orangutans 2007-2017, by President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono in the United Nation Climate Change Conference in Bali on Dec.10, was unsupported by real actions or conviction.

“The government’s commitment is only lip service. There should be a 25-30 year moratorium on the conversion and destruction of forests to increase the size of orangutan habitats and boost their security,” Rosek said.

The government should demonstrate its commitment by allocating funds for orangutan conservation to all animal rescue centers in Indonesia, banning the transfer of orangutans to safari parks, where they are exploited to entertain visitors, and fully supporting the moratorium on the conversion and destruction of Indonesian forests.

“Under the moratorium, we will be able to save both orangutans and the forest while under the Reducing Emissions from Degradation and Deforestation (REDD) scheme, it is not clear how the funds will be allocated,” he said.

Rosek suggested a scheme that allowed a developed country to donate compensation funds for orangutans and Indonesian forest conservation by hectares.

“The price of an orangutan in Europe is between US$40,000 and $50,000. The compensation should be higher than that,” he said.

“It is tragic that a globally recognizable species like the orangutan can no longer survive it in its jungle habitat. The government should be held responsible,” Rosek said.

The President said the orangutan was the icon of the rainforest. Therefore the rainforest should be saved in order to save orangutans. Orangutans are now endangered because in the past 35 years, Indonesia has lost about 50,000 orangutans.

“If this condition continues, in 2050 the orangutan will be extinct,” he said.

That is why the Indonesian government launched the strategy and action plan for orangutan conservation, the President said. He also asked the nation to support environmentalists’ efforts to save the orangutans.

By Roger Harrabin Environment Analyst, BBC News

Europe’s environment chief has admitted that the EU did not foresee the problems raised by its policy to get 10% of Europe’s road fuels from plants.

Recent reports have warned of rising food prices and rainforest destruction from increased biofuel production.

The EU has promised new guidelines to ensure that its target is not damaging.
EU Environment Commissioner Stavros Dimas said it would be better to miss the target than achieve it by harming the poor or damaging the environment.

Clampdown promised
A couple of years ago biofuels looked like the perfect get-out-of-jail free card for car manufacturers under pressure to cut carbon emissions.

Instead of just revolutionising car design they could reduce transport pollution overall if drivers used more fuel from plants which would have soaked up CO2 while they were growing.
The EU leapt at the idea - and set their biofuels targets.

Since then reports have warned that some biofuels barely cut emissions at all - and others can lead to rainforest destruction, drive up food prices, or prompt rich firms to drive poor people off their land to convert it to fuel crops.

“We have seen that the environmental problems caused by biofuels and also the social problems are bigger than we thought they were. So we have to move very carefully,” Mr Dimas told the BBC.

“We have to have criteria for sustainability, including social and environmental issues, because there are some benefits from biofuels.”

He said the EU would introduce a certification scheme for biofuels and promised a clampdown on biodiesel from palm oil which is leading to forest destruction in Indonesia.

Some analysts doubt that “sustainable” palm oil exists because any palm oil used for fuel simply swells the demand for the product oil on the global market which is mainly governed by food firms.

US expansion
Mr Dimas said it was vital for the EU’s rules to prevent the loss of biodiversity which he described as the other great problem for the planet, along with climate change.

On Monday, the Royal Society, the UK’s academy of science, is publishing a major review of biofuels. It is expected to call on the EU to make sure its guidelines guarantee that all biofuels in Europe genuinely save carbon emissions.

In the US the government has just passed a new energy bill mandating a major increase in fuel from corn, which is deemed by some analysts to be useless in combating rising carbon dioxide emissions.

The bill also foresees a huge expansion in fuel from woody plants but the technology for this is not yet proven.

Story from BBC NEWS: http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/1/hi/world/europe/7186380.stm

This weekend, visitors to the Como Zoo in St. Paul are getting their first glimpse at the newest member of the zoo’s primate family.

A baby Sumatran orangutan was born in mid-December to Markisa, one of the zoo’s female orangutans. The baby was delivered via caesarean section and required numerous doctors and veterenarians from Como Zoo, the University of Minnesota College of Veterinary Medicine, and the University of Minnesota Children’s Hospital-Fairview to assist in the birthing process.

The baby and his mother were reunited on Christmas eve, and he is making his public debut this weekend.

Megan Elder, lead orangutan trainer at Como Zoo, joined the reporters on 5 EYEWITNESS NEWS Weekend Morning to talk about the new baby orangutan, how he’s adjusting to the spotlight, and the search for a name for this little guy.

2 great pics of the baby

Visit Como Zoo’s website

Source: http://kstp.com/article/stories/S311959.shtml?cat=118

LONDON, UK, January 11, 2008 (ENS) - Many more bird species are threatened with extinction than previously feared, according to analyses of satellite images that reveal for the first time the extent of deforestation occurring on the island of New Britain, Papua New Guinea. The island is a stronghold for a number of birds found nowhere else on Earth.

An eighth of lowland forest on the island disappeared between 1989 and 2000, driven by a rapid and uncontrolled expansion in global demand for palm oil.

“The findings show that New Britain’s endemic birds are being driven to extinction by our thirst for palm oil, which is widely used in foodstuffs and industry,” said Stuart Butchart, BirdLife International’s Global Species Program coordinator.

“After wiping out the lowland forests of Malaysia and Indonesia, companies are now moving eastwards, to New Guinea and Melanesia, where they now threaten a whole new suite of species,” he said.

The findings, published in the journal “Biological Conservation” mean that the total number of Threatened or Near Threatened birds on the island will almost double to 21.

Conservationists now are calling for an effective system to protect the crucial lowland forests that remain on New Britain.

The research was conducted by scientists from the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, BirdLife International, Conservation International, and the Institute of Environment and Sustainability, which is part of the European Commission’s Joint Research Centre.

Their analysis of before-and-after high resolution images of New Britain shows that 12 percent of forest cover was lost between 1989 and 2000, including over 20 percent of forest under 100 meters in altitude, with substantial areas cleared for commercial oil palm plantations.

“Examining the satellite images of New Britain, we were struck immediately by the clear and extensive loss of forest in many parts of the island,” explained Dr. Graeme Buchanan of the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds and lead author of the paper. “Deforestation was particular severe in the flat coastal lowlands.”

The scientists then overlaid the maps of forest loss with known habitat preferences of New Britain’s birds. These analyses suggested that extensive habitat loss will have forced significant declines for 21 of the island’s bird species, bringing some to the edge of extinction.

“By comparing this information against the altitudinal ranges of each of the birds that live in New Britain, we estimated the potential effects on species – a ‘before and after’ of disappearing habitat, and of disappearing populations,” said Buchanan.

This study is the first time that that the use of satellite imagery has been used to determine the likely threat status of a complete set of birds present in a given region or locality.

The technique has potential for use in other places where field data are lacking in areas that may be too extensive or too difficult to survey on the ground, as is the case on New Britain.

The island of New Britain is inhabited by many rare and unusual bird species. Those most affected by deforestation on the island only occur in the lowlands and cannot tolerate degraded or non-forest habitats.

The paper reports that hardest hit is the strikingly iridescent Bismarck kingfisher, Alcedo websteri, a species that prefers lowland forest streams. It lost a fifth of its habitat during the 10 year study period.

Other birds to suffer include the Green-fronted Hanging-parrot, Loriculus tener, which lost 18 percent of its habitat in the same period.

Southeast Asia’s largely unregulated and expanding palm oil industry - fueled by increasing global demand - is highlighted as the main factor behind the extensive lowland forest loss on New Britain.

Based on further analysis of the satellite images, an estimated 320 square kilometers or 11 percent of the land cleared had already been converted to plantation, mainly for palm oil.

Much of the remainder is likely to be planted up in the next few years, the authors warn.

The paper recommends potential areas to designate as protected, concluding that “there is clearly a pressing need to survey these areas to confirm that they are refuges for New Britain’s endemic fauna, and to ensure their immediate and effective protection.”

Source: http://www.ens-newswire.com/ens/jan2008/2008-01-11-03.asp

BY RICHARD CHIN
Pioneer Press

Markisa, the Como Zoo’s 20-year-old orangutan, gave birth Dec. 13 by Caesarean section. While she recovered, zookeepers fed the infant and let him cling to them while they wore a furry, orange vest in hopes of easing his transition to his mom. (JOHN DOMAN, Pioneer Press)

What’s the hardest thing about holding a newborn baby orangutan? Not talking to it.

That’s what zookeepers at Como Zoo learned when Markisa, one of the zoo’s orangutans, gave birth Dec. 13 via Caesarean section, the first primate C-section at the zoo and one of only a handful of orangutan C-sections worldwide.

The yet-to-be-named baby, reunited with his mother, made his public debut Thursday. He is on exhibit on a limited basis.

Right after his birth, Markisa was recovering from the surgery and couldn’t take care of him, so zookeepers had to step in.

Orangutan babies are held by their mothers round-the-clock. So that’s what zookeepers did, taking three-hour shifts holding the new baby 24 hours a day for 11 days.

To imitate an orangutan mother, the staffers wore an orange, furry vest the new baby could cling to. The vest was made from a costume used at the zoo’s Halloween ZooBoo events, zookeeper Tami Murphy said.

“I think it was a fox costume,” she said.

The baby was bottle-fed, but instead of cradling him like a human infant, zookeepers let the baby cling to them, belly-to-belly.

To give him a better chance of being reunited with his mother, the zookeepers didn’t want the baby to bond too closely to humans. So the surrogate parents weren’t allowed to talk or sing to him.

“That was very hard,” Murphy said. “You want to talk to it like a baby.”

Orangutans are closely related to humans, so zookeepers borrowed from human medicine to
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help both the mother and baby.

An over-the-counter human pregnancy test was used determine that the 20-year-old Markisa had successfully mated with Jambu Aye, a 22-year-old male at the zoo.

“We just collected urine and tested that with ClearBlue Easy,” said Megan Elder, lead orangutan trainer.

Markisa’s water broke after 8½ months of pregnancy. When she didn’t deliver in the normal four hours of an orangutan labor, the zoo implemented a birth management plan: Markisa was taken to the University of Minnesota Veterinary Medical Center, where U vets performed the C-section with the assistance of OB-GYN doctors from the U Children’s Hospital.

“The anatomy, it was almost identical to what we’d see in a human,” the university’s Dr. Yasuka Yamamura said.

Elder said the baby had fluid in his lungs and stopped breathing shortly after birth but was successfully resuscitated.

“It didn’t look good in the first hours of life,” she said.

“It was very stressful to have such a sick baby, just as you would with a human baby,” said Dr. Jessica Nyholm of the University of Minnesota.

But the baby responded to treatment that would be used on a human infant.

Veterinarians also used human medicine to keep Markisa lactating so she could breastfeed her infant after she recovered.

Three days after birth, the baby was brought back to the zoo and gradually reintroduced to Markisa.

On Christmas Day, the baby was passed to the mom, and she successfully began to nurse him. Zookeepers said they believe the reintroduction of the baby to an orangutan mom after a C-section was done in record time. They said that in the eight other known orangutan C-section births worldwide, the reintroduction process has taken up to several months.

“Once we give the baby to the mother, that’s a leap of faith,” said Micky Trent, a U professor and head Como Zoo veterinarian. If Markisa couldn’t care for the baby, the zookeepers would have had to tranquilize her to get the baby back.

Zoo officials believe the transition went well because Markisa - who had a stillbirth in 2005 - was herself raised by orangutan parents. And eight years ago, she saw another orangutan at the zoo give birth and raise an offspring.

“So far, everything has gone great,” Trent said.

Source: http://www.twincities.com/localnews/ci_7939066?nclick_check=1

Note from the Director: Palm Oil is the leading cause of orangutan deaths. When palm oil companies cut down the forest and create giant oil-palm plantations, they kill every living creature in the forest. Adult male and female orangutans are slaughtered on sight. Babies are captured– often being pried off their dead mothers’ bodies– in order to be sold as illegal pets. The fact that the Malaysian Palm Oil Council would even pretend otherwise is utterly disgraceful.

__________

© AP 2008-01-09

LONDON (AP) - Britain’s advertising watchdog on Wednesday ordered British television to stop airing two commercials suggesting palm oil production in Malaysia is good for the environment, calling them misleading.

The independent Advertising Standards Authority accepted complaints by environmentalists that the net impact of using palm oil as a biofuel is still unproven, and that the Malaysia Palm Oil Council’s commercials could mislead viewers to think palm oil plantations are as environmentally friendly as natural rain forests.

The ruling was the latest skirmish in the global warming debate on the benefits of palm oil as a substitute for fossil fuels. The arguments before the authority covered a broad range of issues by both sides.

The dispute tested claims by Malaysia and Indonesia, the world’s largest producers, that palm oil plantations have a minimum impact on biodiversity and that they are more efficient than other types of agriculture in controlling climate change by soaking up carbon from the air and by producing cleaner fuels.

«Because there was not a consensus that there was a net benefit to the environment from Malaysia’s palm oil plantations, we concluded the ads were misleading,» the watchdog said.

The two ads were shown in July on BBC World, the British Broadcasting Corp.’s international news and information channel.

One commercial showed a palm oil plantation while a voice-over said: «Its trees give life and help our planet breathe, and give home to hundreds of species of flora and fauna.

The second ad’s voice-over said: «Its trees give life and help our planet breathe. Its fruit provides vitamins for our bodies and energy for our daily lives.

Malaysia argued before the board that new palm oil plantations have not displaced rain forests since 1990, and instead were planted on converted rubber, cocoa and coconut plantations.

That was challenged by Friends of the Earth, which filed one of the complaints. It said huge tracts of forests had been cleared in Malaysia between 1995 and 2000 for palm oil development, further threatening endangered species such as the orangutan and proboscis monkey.

«The draining and deforesting of peatlands in Southeast Asia, predominantly to make way for palm plantations, releases huge amounts of soil carbon into the atmosphere, accounting for a massive 8 percent of global annual CO2 (carbon dioxide) emissions,» the group said in a statement.

Associated Press Writer Arthur Max contributed to this story.

Source: http://www.pr-inside.com/uk-authority-pulls-ads-about-malaysian-r378634.htm

NEW YORK CITY — January 8, 2008. In a meeting with representatives of environmental groups Rainforest Relief and New York Climate Action Group, Parks Commissioner Adrian Benepe unveiled a plan to phase out the use of hardwoods logged from the rainforests of the Amazon, which the agency uses for benches, boardwalks and the decking of bridges in the thousands of parks and areas overseen by the department. Celia Peterson, director of the Specification Office of NYC Parks, stated that as of last month, Parks will no longer specify tropical hardwoods for benches.

The issue was recognized by Mayor Michael Bloomberg in his speech last month in Bali during the climate talks:

“New York, like many cities, uses tropical hardwoods-in our case, for our extensive beach boardwalks and also for the
walkway on the world-famous Brooklyn Bridge… I’ve asked my Office of Long-Term Planning and Sustainability to work
with the relevant City agencies, and present me, within the next 60 days, with a plan for reducing our reliance on such
hardwoods.”

“This is an exciting announcement and the most progress we’ve seen on this issue in a decade,” said Tim Keating, Director of Rainforest Relief. “It’s been a long, long road to get to this point and we thank Parks Commissioner Benepe and other Parks staff who have worked to find suitable alternatives to rainforest hardwoods. We call on other city and state agencies to end their use of these destructive woods as well.”

Rainforest Relief, founded in New Jersey in 1989, began a campaign to eliminate the use of rainforest woods by the city in 1995 after recognizing tropical hardwoods at the Coney Island boardwalk in 1994. Recently, the group was joined by a new hard-hitting grassroots organization, New York Climate Action Group, which campaigns to end the city’s use of tropical hardwoods because deforestation, mostly in the tropics, contributes an estimated 25 – 30% of human-caused greenhouse gases.

Logging for exported wood is the primary factor leading to tropical deforestation, as roads are first bulldozed by loggers, in their pursuit of high-value species for export. This allows access to farmers and others who then completely clear those devastated forests.

“People worldwide recognize with increasing urgency the need to address climate change. Economists and environmentalists agree that ending deforestation is a highly cost-effective means to do so. We hope that Mayor Bloomberg will institute a policy ending the use of all woods from old growth forests”, said JK Canepa, a founding member of NYCAG.

In November, Ecological Internet, founded by Dr. Glen Barry, sent an action alert about the issue to a mailing list of over 50,000. The alert generated approximately 200,000 protest emails from 68 countries to state and city staff and officials in the month prior to Mayor Bloomberg’s announcement.

“Maintaining large and intact primary and old-growth forests free from industrial logging is a requirement to address climate change, biodiversity loss and to achieve global ecological sustainability,” explains Dr. Barry. “Ancient rainforest logs belong in intact rainforest canopies and ecosystems, not NYC park benches and boardwalks.”

January 08, 2008

LONDON, Jan. 8, 2008 (Thomson Financial delivered by Newstex) — The UK Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) censured Wednesday commercials for Malaysian palm oil, saying they break the rules and are misleading.

Two television advertisements for the Malaysia Palm Oil Council, which promotes the market expansion of Malaysian palm oil, wrongly imply the product is good for the environment, the authority said.

The ASA said the commercials breached rules on misleading advertising, evidence and environmental claims.

The first commercial shows a palm oil plantation while a voice-over says: ‘Its trees give life and help our planet breathe, and give home to hundreds of species of flora and fauna.’
This is likely to mislead viewers about the environmental benefits of oil palm plantations in comparison with native rainforest, the ASA said. The claim about flora and fauna is also likely to mislead, it said.

The second ad’s voice-over says: ‘Its trees give life and help our planet breathe. Its fruit provides vitamins for our bodies and energy for our daily lives.’
The authority upheld two complaints about the second commercial lodged by the environmental campaign group Friends of the Earth.

‘Because there was not a consensus that there was a net benefit to the environment from Malaysia’s palm oil plantations, we concluded the ads were misleading,’ the ASA said.

The Malaysia Palm Oil Council said plantations do not typically replace native rainforest, that they are customarily sustainable and that they support biodiversity.

Friends of the Earth biofuels (OTCBB:EBOF) campaigner Hannah Griffiths said: ‘It is a complete lie to advertise palm oil as sustainably produced. It has devastating impacts on the environment and on local communities.’

Source: CNN

Como Zoo’s newest red ape will be on display this weekend
Contest will be held to name Como’s newest orangutan
By TIM HARLOW, Star Tribune
January 8, 2008

Minnesota - He doesn’t have a name yet, but he’s among Como Zoo’s newest and rarest arrivals: an orangutan delivered by Caesarean section.

The baby, born Dec. 13 at the University of Minnesota’s Veterinary Medical Center, is the 14th orangutan born at the zoo since 1959, its first since 1999 and its only arrival by C-section.

Doctors from the U’s veterinary college joined with zoo staff and a pair of obstetrician-gynecologists from University of Minnesota Children’s Hospital to perform the emergency surgery last month.

After three days in intensive care and eight more under round-the-clock supervision from zookeepers, the baby was reunited with his mother — a 20-year-old Sumatran orangutan named Markisa — on Christmas Day. Both are doing well.

“We were able to give her a little gift. She went right to him,” said Megan Elder, the zoo’s lead orangutan trainer. “We couldn’t have asked for a better introduction.”

The baby, who weighed about 4 pounds and was 12 inches long when he arrived, will be introduced to the media on Thursday and will be on display this weekend.

The zoo will also let the public choose among three names for the new orangutan.

It is rare, although not unprecedented, for great apes to undergo C-sections. An orangutan was born after the surgery at Utah’s Hogle Zoo in 2005. Busch Gardens in Tampa, Fla., used the procedure to deliver a gorilla in 2005 and an orangutan in 2003.

Because humans and orangutans share so many traits, zookeepers seek to involve ob/gyns with everything from ultrasounds to delivery.

“The parallels are definitely there,” said Grace Doolittle, a lactation consultant at Children’s Hospital who offered advice on getting Markisa nursing after mother and baby were reunited.

For instance, she said, orangutan mothers can take some of the same medicines as humans and in similar doses.

Involving physicians has become especially important as the orangutan population dwindles.

Only 7,000 orangutans are left in the wild. Because of deforestation on the Indonesian islands of Sumatra and Borneo, the arboreal apes could be extinct in the wild in 10 to 15 years, according to zoo officials. There are roughly 200 on display in American zoos.

Markisa is a valuable female in the North American orangutan population because she is at a prime birthing age and was reared by her mother instead of a human.

She arrived at Como in 1995 with a male, Jambu Aye, amid hopes that the two would become a breeding pair.

But she delivered a stillborn baby in 2005. Her mother, who is at the Oregon Zoo, also had a history of delivering stillborns.

Precautions taken

That put Como Zoo staff on the alert when they found out Markisa was pregnant in June. They contacted the U’s College of Veterinary Medicine and consulted other zoos in developing a birth management plan.

When Markisa went into labor on Dec. 13 and didn’t deliver a baby within the typical four-hour window, the situation became urgent.

Not only was the zoo worried that the baby might be dead, they needed to save Markisa.

Twenty staff members from the veterinary college and Children’s Hospital performed the surgery.

The baby stopped breathing five minutes after birth because of fluid in his lungs and was rushed to intensive care.

His mother was returned to the zoo before the sedation wore off.

The baby was breathing on his own after a night, which led to 11 days of constant attention from zoo staff wearing orange furry vests that allowed the orangutan to cling to them like he would to his own mother.

And the zoo’s biggest concern — that the mother would neglect or become aggressive toward the baby after separation — was resolved on Christmas Day.

During the eight days before they were reunited, the zoo kept the baby near Markisa, giving her a blanket with his scent and allowing her to touch him through mesh fabric.

When they placed the crying baby on wool bedding in the corner of Markisa’s holding area, she raced to him.

“It was heartbreaking to see him crying,” Elder said. “But when she ran right to him, we couldn’t have asked for anything better.”

Neither could the staff who got to work on such a unique patient.

“If they called again, I’d be there in a heartbeat,” said Dr. Mark Bergeron, a neonatal/perinatal medicine fellow at the Children’s Hospital who helped care for the baby the day after he was born. “It’s one of the most memorable things I’ve done.”

Photos by Como Park Zoo
Source: http://www.startribune.com/local/13532346.html?pt=y
Visit the Como Park Zoo’s website

Highway Planned by Paper Giant Asian Pulp and Paper Will Destroy Sumatran Forests, says WWF

“Legally Questionable” Road Threatens Forest Haven for Indigenous People and Endangered Tigers and Orangutans

WWF Press Release: 01/07/2008
Source: http://www.worldwildlife.org/news/displayPR.cfm?prID=488

Washington D.C.– An investigative report released today by World Wildlife Fund revealed that paper giant Asia Pulp & Paper (APP) and its affiliates are in the process of constructing a massive highway for logging vehicles that threatens one of Indonesia’s most important forests. The highway, described by WWF in the report as being “legally questionable,” would cut an enormous swath through one of Sumatra’s last remaining large forest blocks, home to two tribes of indigenous people and endangered elephants, tigers and orangutans.

With more than 250 mammals and bird species, the Bukit Tigapuluh Forest Landscape in central Sumatra contains some of the richest biodiversity on Earth. It is also the location of a successful project to reintroduce orangutans, which now reside in an area currently proposed for protected status but that is already being cleared by APP-affiliated companies.

“APP shows a total disregard for the ecosystem in their quest for cheap sources of raw materials,” said Adam Tomasek, Director of WWF’s Borneo and Sumatra Program. “Their customers around the globe should demand that they responsibly manage these forests to protect the wildlife and people that rely on them.”

Construction on the highway, which would allow logging trucks easier access to APP’s pulp mills in Jambi Province, took place after APP’s forestry operations in neighboring Riau Province were halted in 2006 due to a police investigation of illegal logging. APP partners have cleared about 50,000 acres of natural forest in the Bukit Tigapuluh landscape and some of the clearing appears to be in violation of Indonesian law.

“We urge APP and its partners to transparently evaluate ecological, environmental and cultural conservation values prior to cutting any natural forests and to stop sourcing any of its purchased wood from such forests,” Tomasek added.”We also call on the government to ensure an end to all forms of forest clearance found to violate national Indonesian laws and regulations.”

Evidence found during the investigation indicates APP-affiliated companies converted hundreds of acres of forest without correct licenses, professional assessments or stakeholder consultation, thus violating Indonesian law. Part of the area being cleared is in a proposed Specific Protected Area that serves as habitat for about 90 Sumatran orangutans recently introduced into the area for the first time in more than 150 years.

In addition, one of the two tribes of indigenous people in the area is found nowhere else on Sumatra. The landscape also was designated one of just 20 Global Priority Landscapes for tiger conservation by an international team of tiger scientists in 2006.

It turns out that one of humanity’s oldest professions may be even older than we thought: In a recent study of macaque monkeys in Indonesia, researchers found that male primates “paid” for sexual access to females — and that the going rate for such access dwindled as the number of available females went up.

According to the paper, “Payment for Sex in a Macaque Mating Market,” published in the December issue of Animal Behavior, males in a group of about 50 long-tailed macaques in Kalimantan Tengah, Indonesia, traded grooming services for sex with females; researchers, who studied the monkeys for some 20 months, found that males offered their payment up-front, as a kind of pre-sex ritual. It worked. After the females were groomed by male partners, female sexual activity more than doubled, from an average of 1.5 times an hour to 3.5 times. The study also showed that the number of minutes that males spent grooming hinged on the number of females available at the time: The better a male’s odds of getting lucky, the less nit-picking time the females received. Though primates have been observed trading grooming for food sharing or infant care, this is the first time this kind of exchange has been observed between male and female primates in a sexual context, says lead researcher Michael Gumert of Singapore’s Nanyang Technological University, demonstrating that the amount of time a male macaque “will invest in [its] partner” depends largely on how many options it has around.

We, more evolved primates, may be tempted to take a cynical view of these findings, but the study’s author suggests a more favorable interpretation: The macaques’ exchange of services simply illustrates a nifty system of cooperation that allows for successful mating. The basic premise, says Gumert, is called biological market theory, which follows the elementary principles of supply versus demand. When applied to the voluntary sex life of long-tailed macaques, it means that the price that one group is willing to pay for a commodity that the other group has depends on the scarcity or abundance of that commodity on the market. Scientists think female macaques may use grooming, too, to try to maintain social relationships within the group to benefit their offspring, or as a way to distract or appease males from getting aggressive after a sexual encounter. In fact, when female macaques groomed males, their services decreased sexual activity in males.

It’s easy to draw parallels between the monkeys’ mating dance and our own, but Gumert warns against reading too much into primate studies like this one. The paper draws no conclusions about what these observations in monkeys mean for the human world. In fact, whether and how scientists should extrapolate from primate behavior is a fairly “big debate,” says Gumert. Certainly, our biology underpins much of what we do, but so does our culture and environment. Gumert asks, “Where do we draw the line?”

That inquiry is at the heart of primate studies like Gumert’s. While science would do well to understand more about the long-tailed macaques’ social world — especially as the animals are increasingly losing their natural habitat in Asia — Gumert says figuring out how this market concept can be applied to the social settings of other animals, including humans, will be its long-term value. In the meantime, it can at least make for some thought-provoking pillow talk.

Source: http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1700821,00.html

The basis for laughter may have originated in an ancient primate ancestral to both humans and modern apes, a study suggests.

Scientists found that orang-utans had a sense of empathy and mimicry which forms an essential part of laughter.

Facial expressions, such as the open, gaping mouth resembling laughter, were picked up and copied by orang-utans.

The speed with which they were mimicked suggests these expressions were involuntary, Biology Letters reports.

In other words, the “laughter” was contagious.

Dr Marina Davila Ross, from the University of Portsmouth and Professor Elke Zimmermann at the University of Veterinary Medicine in Hanover, Germany, studied the play behaviour of 25 orang-utans aged between two and 12 at four primate centres around the world.

When one of the orang-utans displayed an open, gaping mouth, its playmate would often display the same expression less than half a second later.

Dr Davila Ross commented: “In humans, mimicking behaviour can be voluntary and involuntary. Until our discovery there had been no evidence that animals had similar responses.

“What is clear now is the building blocks of positive emotional contagion and empathy that refer to rapid involuntary facial mimicry in humans evolved prior to humankind.”

She added that the findings shed a new light on empathy and its importance for animals which live in groups such as orang-utans.

Source:The basis for laughter may have originated in an ancient primate ancestral to both humans and modern apes, a study suggests.

Scientists found that orang-utans had a sense of empathy and mimicry which forms an essential part of laughter.

Facial expressions, such as the open, gaping mouth resembling laughter, were picked up and copied by orang-utans.

The speed with which they were mimicked suggests these expressions were involuntary, Biology Letters reports.

In other words, the “laughter” was contagious.

Dr Marina Davila Ross, from the University of Portsmouth and Professor Elke Zimmermann at the University of Veterinary Medicine in Hanover, Germany, studied the play behaviour of 25 orang-utans aged between two and 12 at four primate centres around the world.

When one of the orang-utans displayed an open, gaping mouth, its playmate would often display the same expression less than half a second later.

Dr Davila Ross commented: “In humans, mimicking behaviour can be voluntary and involuntary. Until our discovery there had been no evidence that animals had similar responses.

“What is clear now is the building blocks of positive emotional contagion and empathy that refer to rapid involuntary facial mimicry in humans evolved prior to humankind.”

She added that the findings shed a new light on empathy and its importance for animals which live in groups such as orang-utans.

Source: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7167878.stm