Oh January 25th, 2009 the Phoenix Zoo celebrated the 3rd birthday of Kasih, a Bornean Orangutan born at the zoo in 2006. Kasih and her parents, Bess and Michael, along with her grandmother, Duchess enjoyed cardboard boxes painted like presents and filled with sheets, pillowcases and veggies along with “ice-cakes” containing fruits and vegetables for a special treat. Over 7,500 zoo guests were in attendance and enjoyed hearing special stories from her primary caregiver, Denise Wagner. Guests also signed a giant 8-foot tall birthday card, brought enrichment toys for presents, and sang “Happy Birthday” to the birthday girl. Other activities focused on orangutan physical adaptations, habitat loss, palm oil, and primate weight comparisons.

See more pictures of Kasih and her family

by John Pope, The Times-Picayune
Friday January 30, 2009, 9:23 PM

Using only a stretched green T-shirt and powerful upper-body strength, a Sumatran orangutan named Berani escaped from his Audubon Zoo enclosure Friday — for about 10 minutes.

Employing a level of cunning that could have come from a prison movie, the brownish-orange primate stretched the shirt, scaled a 10 1/2-foot wall to the top of the moat, wrapped the shirt around the “hot” electrical wires surrounding the exhibit and swung out about 12:45 p.m., zoo spokeswoman Sarah Burnette said.

Berani means “brave” in Bornean, Burnette said, but on Friday afternoon, it could have meant “reluctant.”

“He seemed like he wanted to get back into the exhibit, ” Burnette said. “That’s the way it is in zoos. . . . He jumped over the enclosure and jumped back in.”

Berani, who didn’t harm anyone, used a T-shirt that had been tossed into the enclosure as a toy for the 150-pound adolescent male and two female orangs, Blaze and Feliz.

The sight of a primate mixing on the grounds with zoo patrons did cause a mild stir.

“There was a group of people standing there, ” Burnette said, “and they kind of pointed, and there was Berani, standing in the middle of the boardwalk. He kind of lingered there for no more than 10 minutes and catapulted himself back into his exhibit.”

Aside from a possible sting when Berani brushed against a wire on his way back in, no one was injured, Burnette said.

Whenever an animal makes a break, humans are hustled into buildings to protect them, she said, and nearby animals are put inside their enclosures so they won’t distract the escapee.

Berani was “very congenial, not threatening, ” she said. “He wanted to explore a little bit and figured it was time to get back home because his zookeeper was yelling at him.”

Once Berani was back in confinement, the exhibit was closed. The escapee was put in his night house — behind the exhibit area and away from public view — and the entire primate area was closed, Burnette said. Berani will be back on view today, but Burnette said he will remain under surveillance all weekend.

The zoo also likely will adjust the mix of primate playthings.

“We gave them T-shirts every day, ” Burnette said. “Not anymore.”

Source: http://www.nola.com/news/index.ssf/2009/01/ape_escape_audubon_zoo_orangut.html

Listen to Burnette talk about Berani’s great escape.

Press release courtesy of the Oregon Zoo

The Oregon Zoo’s orangutans made their pick clear, unanimously choosing the Arizona Cardinals over the favored Pittsburgh Steelers in Sunday’s Super Bowl.

In a tradition dating back to 1996, keepers each year provide the orangs with official T-shirts from the two Super Bowl teams. The uncanny primates make their picks known by trying on a shirt from one of the teams.

“The orangutans made a bold choice,” commented Chris Sulages, head football coach at Lewis & Clark College who provided play-by-play for the event. Sulages, whose team went 1-8 this year, knows a thing or two about underdogs.

Kutai, youngest of the zoo’s orangs, boasts a flawless 4-0 record, having correctly picked the winner of the past four Super Bowls, including the Giants’ upset victory over the heavily favored and previously unbeaten Patriots last year. His grandmother, Inji, has predicted the winners of four Super Bowls and two Civil War games.

Each year, keepers provide the orangs with official T-shirts from the two Super Bowl teams. The uncanny primates make their picks known by trying on a shirt from one of the teams.

Inji’s ability to predict the winner of football games was discovered by chance back in 1996. A local sportscaster had seen the orangs receive clothing items as enrichment and wondered what they might do with Beavers and Ducks T-shirts prior to the teams’ 100th Civil War game. Inji, the most dominant of the orangs at the time, put on an Oregon shirt, and the Ducks went on to win, 49-13.

Two years later, she was given the same challenge and again picked the winner — the Beavers this time, in a 44-41 double-overtime thriller. Still somewhat skeptical, keepers put Inji to the test in that season’s Super Bowl, and she correctly chose Denver over Atlanta.

After a forced hiatus due to exhibit construction, Inji resumed her predictions in 2002, raising a few eyebrows when she picked the New England Patriots over the powerful St. Louis Rams, who were 14-point favorites at the time. As usual, though, Inji was right: The Patriots upset the Rams, 20-17. Inji eventually attained a record of 6-1 in her predictions, but became less reliable once her grandson Kutai began participating.

According to Senior Primate Keeper Dave Thomas, Kutai began inserting himself into the prediction process in 2005 and has shown he knows how to pick a winner: “While Inji’s record has slipped, Kutai’s has been perfect.”

Thomas won’t speculate about whether Inji might be stepping aside to allow her grandson to shine, or if he’s taking over by force.

“He did take all the shirts from one team one year, so her choice was limited,” Thomas conceded.

Zookeepers are always looking for new and interesting ways to keep the animals engaged and active. Giving the orangutans T-shirts and other interesting items serves as environmental enrichment. The Oregon Zoo is internationally renowned for its environmental enrichment program, designed to keep animals mentally and physically challenged and stimulated.

Source: http://www.katu.com/news/38731057.html

By Ed Davies

JAKARTA (Reuters) – Indonesia hopes to lay out a clear set of regulations before June on using carbon credits to protect rainforests so the rules can be discussed in upcoming international talks, a top climate official said.

The United Nations has backed a scheme called REDD, or reduced emissions from deforestation and degradation, in which developing nations could potentially earn billions of dollars from selling carbon credits in return for saving their forests.

Investors from banks to forestry firms and NGOs are lining up to set up REDD schemes in Indonesia and elsewhere in Asia, Africa and South America.

But the scheme is in its infancy and regulations are needed guide how REDD projects will work, will ensure the forests remain intact, how much carbon they will save and sequester and how money from selling the credits will flow to local communities.

Agus Purnomo, head of Indonesia’s National Council on Climate Change, told Reuters on Thursday it was crucial to manage expectations over plans to save huge swathes of forest.

“Money is not going to fall from the sky just because we have forests,” said Purnomo, who heads the council set up last July under President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono. The council coordinates policy and developing priorities on climate change.

REDD won backing at U.N.-led climate talks in Bali in 2007 and trial schemes are now being developed. The World Bank in Jakarta says 20 trial schemes are at various stages of development in Indonesia. Banks, including Merrill Lynch and Macquarie Group of Australia, are among the investors.

Indonesia is also under pressure to curb deforestation, particularly illegal logging.

A report sponsored by the World Bank and Britain’s Department for International Development says up to 84 percent of Indonesia’s carbon emissions come from deforestation, forest fires and peatland degradation.

REDD REVENUE

“I am pushing to have REDD ongoing, (a) scheme (that) is clear before June, so that it will also contribute to the international negotiation process,” he said, referring to a round of U.N.-led climate talks in Bonn, Germany.

The talks are part of a series in the run up to main talks in the Danish capital at the end of the year aimed at trying to agree on a broader replacement for the U.N. Kyoto Protocol climate pact.

Purnomo said one of the key unresolved issues over REDD was on taxation and the split in revenue for investors.

“The potential investors have been kicking and screaming with the proposal from the ministry of forestry but none of them are actually producing a good alternative arrangement,” he said.

Some potential investors wanted to be taxed on their net profits, he said, adding this could be tricky since there would have to be an agreement on the level of costs.

He said that as well as dealing with some grumbles from potential investors the process also sometimes faced resistance from parts of Indonesia’s unwieldy bureaucracy.

“That’s why I need political blessing. I’m not supposed to say it that way but basically what I do is kick some butts,” added Purnomo, 50, who previously headed non-governmental organizations such as the World Wildlife Fund in Indonesia.

He said a climate trust fund, aiming to pool donor commitments to direct the cash at priority areas and improve transparency, was also due to be launched before June.

He said the election of U.S. President Barack Obama had brought “fresh air” to global climate change negotiations, although it was unclear how much Washington would be able to commit itself to given the financial crisis.

“I think that they will have to resolve to a ‘less now but more later’ type of commitment,” he said, adding that overall progress in December’s U.N. climate talks in Copenhagen could hinge on the depth of the crisis.

Purnomo said he was concerned about pressure on developing countries to shoulder more of the cost of climate change.

“It’s not a winning debate when you ask China, India or other countries… to make commitments to reductions when our emissions per-capita are very, very small.”

(Editing by David Fogarty)

http://www.reuters.com/article/GCA-BusinessofGreen/idUSTRE50T0Y220090130

Source: The Jakarta Post | Fri 01/30/2009 | Reader’s Forum

The Jakarta zoo’s long-held, uncaring attitude towards these orangutans is nothing less than a national scandal.

Orangutans, the most iconic of Indonesian animals, have been left to a 90-year-old lady to care for with money from her own pension while the zoo squanders vast amounts of money restoring stone statues of animals at the front gate

Despite repeated attempts over the past 12 months to persuade the zoo director and curator to remedy this disgraceful situation, neither has shown any interest.

The Forestry Ministry look upon these captive (though largely caught in the wild) orangutans much the same way as they look upon those in the rapidly disappearing forests they keep on selling; orangutans are nothing more than an inconvenience getting in the way of making serious money.

That the Jakarta zoo chooses to neglect orangutans makes one wonder how the rest of the animals are treated. Has anyone ever wondered how the Forestry Ministry can be trusted to be responsible for wildlife when the ministry itself single-handedly is responsible for selling off the forest which is the primary reason why these orangutans are in the zoo in the first place?

Is it not about time responsibility for protecting wildlife is transferred to the Environment Ministry? On the Forestry Ministry’s watch, by their own admission at least 75,000 orangutans have been killed in the past 25 years.

At this rate, left to them, soon there will only be a few orangutans in the wild, which of course may well be what the Forestry Ministry wants. The question is, will the people of Indonesia stand by and let this happen? Watch this space.

Sean Whyte
Chief Executive
Nature Alert
Jakarta

Below is an appeal from Michigan Girl Scouts Madison Vorva and Rhiannon Tomtishen, two awesome young ladies who are trying to get the Girl Scouts to stop using palm oil in their cookies. They are wearing orangutan shirts from Daughter Earth– and a percentage is donated to us!

Dear Girl Scout Community,

We are inviting all past or current Girl Scout Community members to participate in our Girl Scout Puzzle Piece Campaign. We have been talking to the Girl Scouts about removing palm oil from Girl Scout Cookies and we want to show them how many Girl Scouts care! Each participant will receive a blank puzzle piece and decorate it with why they think it’s important the Girl Scouts remove palm oil from Girl Scout Cookies. This can be done through a quote, sentence, picture, poem, etc. The pieces will then be mailed back to us and we will present them to the Girl Scouts once the puzzle is complete to show them how many other Girl Scouts believe in this cause too! If you would like to participate or get more information you can email us at saveorangutans137@hotmail.com, also please check out our website at: www.saveorangutan.bravehost.com

~Madison and Rhiannon

BANDA ACEH, Indonesia (AFP) — A spate of recent deadly animal attacks in Indonesia has thrown the spotlight on growing conflicts between humans and animals triggered by the rapid dwindling of the country’s forests.

In the latest attack, two women were trampled to death by a pair of elephants in Aceh province on the northern tip of Sumatra island Tuesday after the elephants entered an illegally cleared field from nearby jungle.

The attack, from which another six villagers narrowly escaped with their lives, came just days after a rubber-tapper was reportedly killed by two rare Sumatran tigers as he urinated outside his hut in Jambi province, also on Sumatra.

The attacks are called human-animal conflicts, and they are a rising problem in Indonesia, an archipelago nation with some of the world’s largest remaining tropical forests and a swelling population of 234 million people.

As people spread into previously untouched forests, big animals such as tigers, elephants and orangutans are being robbed of the large habitats needed to sustain their populations, Arnold Sitompul, the head of environmental group Elephant Forum, told AFP.

“The main reason (for conflicts) is habitat loss. There is a lot of habitat loss going on in Indonesia for plantations, mining,” Sitompul said.

Without their habitats, animals such as elephants turn up on newly settled areas at the forest’s edge, devouring and trampling crops and terrorising villagers. The result is often deadly for both humans and animals.

“Elephants can tolerate some disturbances but if you go there and set up settlements it will lead to conflict… Why is that? Because elephants don’t like humans and humans are scared of elephants, because they’re big,” Sitompul said.

Poisonings and shootings of animals in conflict areas are a common occurrence. At least 45 elephants were killed in mass poisonings between 2002 and 2006 in Sumatra’s Riau province alone, according to environmental group WWF.

“In places like Aceh, conflict between humans and elephants and humans and tigers is increasing,” said WWF forest program director Ian Kosasih, who added that there are no solid figures on how many conflicts are happening nationwide.

“In some areas you can’t say it’s increasing but it’s still there … I’m sure it’s not getting better anywhere.”

Sumatra island, blanketed in forests until just decades ago, is the hotspot for the clash between humans, elephants and tigers, Kosasih said.

Kalimantan on Indonesia’s half of Borneo island is the centre of a more uneven conflict, with the killing of orangutans who stray onto rapidly expanding palm oil plantations and farms.

Local governments and non-governmental organisations are working hard to mitigate the conflicts, but so far have met with mixed success.

In response to the most recent attack in Aceh, the local conservation authority sent a team of 15 people — and four tame elephants — to scare the wild elephants back into the jungle.

But such measures, which in the case of elephants also include techniques such as planting barriers of acacia trees and spiky shrubs, are only a stop-gap so long as forest habitats are being destroyed, Aceh conservation agency head Andi Basrul said.

“If we don’t all together protect the forest, then it will be difficult to overcome the elephant attacks, because it is their homes that are being interfered with,” Basrul said.

“If, for comparison, it were our homes and yards that were being destroyed, of course we’d be angry. It’s the same with elephants.”

http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5jE8Q_oKSXWdHJy1q2i7fl3m7LWZg