Above: Is
Below: Bento

Wanna pet the nice casuari?  ;-)  We currently have 3 at Tasikoki!

The Tasikoki Animal Rescue and Education Center is located at the tip of North Sulawesi. View Tasikoki on Google Maps

Tasikoki is home to two wonderful orangutans named Bento and Is, along with hundreds of other animals, birds & reptiles– all confiscated from smugglers on their way to the Philippines.

Tasikoki was designed and created by Willie Smits (of Samboja Lestari fame) and he often stops by to meet and spend time with the volunteers.

Tasikoki has excellent living quarters and sits on its own private volcanic black sand beach! The cost is approximately US $200 per week to volunteer. This covers all room and board.

Volunteers provide essential assistance to the work of the center, improving the animal welfare standard of local staff and contributing much needed funds to sustain the project. The animals need care all year around and we accept volunteers for 2 weeks to 2 months or more. No animal qualifications or experience is necessary. Work involves a certain amount of cleaning enclosures and feeding animals, but mainly the volunteer duties are focused around enrichment for the animals, for which training and guidance is given.

Download the Tasikoki Volunteer Information Pack [pdf]

Contact us for more info.

Learn more on the Tasikoki website.

This center is one of the several wildlife rescue centers and wildlife transfer stations set up by the Gibbon Foundation to care for the ever increasing inflow of confiscated illegally kept and traded wildlife within Indonesia.

The Tasikoki center has been established in a strategic location to tackle the cross-border trade from Indonesia towards the Philippines and onwards to China, Taiwan and Japan. Sulawesi, being the closest Indonesian island to the Philippines, has been exploited as a consolidation point for illegal shipments of wildlife and wildlife products from Java, Sumatra, Borneo and the islands in the Eastern part of the Indonesian archipelago, especially Papua. Orangutans, sun bears, gibbons, tarsiers, lorises and pangolins were some of the most endangered mammals smuggled out of the country; however cockatoos, hornbills, birds of paradise as well as turtles and other reptiles were shipped out in even bigger quantities. Without a sustainably-run rescue facility, the authorities would not be able to enforce wildlife laws, raid and confiscate live animals; hence the Tasikoki wildlife rescue center was intended to be instrumental in stopping this trade. In addition there is a thriving bush meat trade in North Sulawesi that brings in bush meat of protected species such as the Sulawesi macaques, the anoa dwarf buffalo and the very rare babirusa, from all over the island of Sulawesi. Tasikoki has been involved in many raids on such bush meat transports.

In addition the former headhunter tribes of the North Sulawesi highlands use primate and hornbill skulls to decorate their red and fierce costumes, again necessitating the hunting of the little remaining wildlife in this densely populated province with little forest habitat left undisturbed. Last but not least, Sulawesi is one of the islands with a large degree of endemicity, making it even more important to have a centre here that could contribute to stopping wildlife trade.

Testament by volunteer Barb Hautanen:

First a brief introduction about how I got interested in Tasiskoki. For a number of years, I have been a fan of Wildlife Friends Foundation of Thailand & considered volunteering there. Last summer on Facebook, I learned WFFT had taken over Tasikoki & they published photos of the rescue center. When I saw how the animals had been living in cramped & dirty conditions, it broke my heart. There was a picture of an orangutan in a tiny cage & when I saw that I knew I had to go there.

I went to Tasikoki for 2 weeks in December. When I arrived, what impressed me most was the improvements & progress which had been made in just a few months. The animals were in larger & clean enclosures, well-fed, & had enrichments. The bears even had a swimming pool with a waterfall! And, the orangutans were in a big enclosure happily swinging on tires. From that point forward, I knew my time & money were going to a good cause.

Prior to arriving at Tasikoki, I was told what to expect in regards to the facility, food, climate, accommodations & the work I would be doing. I knew caring for the animals would include feeding & cleaning, but I was impressed to see that Simon placed a high priority on enrichments for the animals. We stuffed plastic balls with grass & seeds which kept the macaques very engaged. To challenge the bears, we hid the food in their enclosure. Coconut juice was frozen in ice cubes trays for monkey treats. And, we tossed leaves & branches on the top of bird enclosures so they would stay busy pulling these items through the roof before eating them.

As for how this adventure compared to my previous volunteer experiences, at Tasikoki I felt privileged to get in on the early stages of a project which really needed help. At other rescue centers I have worked with just one type of animal, but here I got to see & learn about a variety of wonderful creatures. Since the rescue center was limited on funds, I found out how to be creative & use whatever was available & to also recycle as much as possible. On a personal level, I loved the volunteer house as well as the tropical environment & scenery.

As for my best experiences, I would like to mention two things. First, I had never before had the opportunity to work with orangutans & I fell in love with them. I was so impressed with their intelligence & personalities. Second, I got the opportunity to be a ’monkey’ nurse. One of the macaques was bitten by another & needed stitches. Since no veterinary services were available & I am an ER nurse, I got to assist Simon with suturing Eddie. I was happy to hear later that Eddie recovered well. And my favorite ‘just for fun’ experience, was going for a swim in the beautiful & warm ocean after a busy day of scooping poop. ;-

Without hesitation, I would recommend Tasikoki as a great place to volunteer. As with most animal volunteer projects, the work is challenging & due to the climate you get hot & sweaty. But at the end of the day, you feel like you have really made a contribution to the lives & future of the many animals.