Tamara the Orangutan on 60 Minutes (Australia)
This story is truly profound. Tamara the orangutan, formerly of Perth Zoo in Australia, was released into the wild over a year ago– and now her ex-keepers are going out to see how she’s doing!
The segment also features some brief interviews with the man responsible for enforcing Indonesia’s anti-deforestation laws.
Watch him smile and laugh hysterically as he admits to doing absolutely nothing to stop the palm oil companies from destroying the forest…. This is so disturbing. If anyone out here can get us in touch with Michael Moore, please contact us immediately.
View the entire segment here:
http://sixtyminutes.ninemsn.com.au/article.aspx?id=418129
Watch the Audio Picture Gallery for this story
Reporter: Liam Bartlett
Producer: Howard Sacre
The mud, the leeches, the heat and humidity, in the end it was all worth it. And how! Just a glimpse of them was magic enough. But to actually hold an orang-utan - one of the rarest creatures on earth - well, that defies description. It was all part of a remarkable rescue mission into the Sumatran jungle, where the orang-utans and their cousins, the gibbons, are on the brink of disaster. Entire forests there are being slashed and burnt, to provide us with a product we can’t get enough of - palm oil. But thanks to a team from the Perth Zoo, at last there’s hope. They could yet be saved from extinction.
Related info:
Australian Orangutan Project website:
www.orangutan.org.au
Contact: Leif Cocks
President, Australian Orangutan Project
Curator Exotics, Perth Zoo
Phone 1300 RED APE
Silvery Gibbon Project website:
www.silvery.org.au
Contact: Clare Campbell
President, Silvery Gibbon Project
Supervisor of Primates, Perth Zoo
Phone 0438 992325 or 08 94740444
Perth Zoo website:
www.perthzoo.wa.gov.au
Phone: 08 94740444
Full transcript:
LIAM BARTLETT: It’s my first encounter with magnificent Sumatran orang-utans and what a welcome! What’s going on? What’s going on?
LEIF COCKS: Liam, maybe you remind him of his mother.
LIAM BARTLETT: Clare Campbell and Leif Cocks from Perth Zoo are in Indonesia on a special mission - to save the world’s most endangered species. It is pretty special, though, we’re in the last of the lowland forests in Indonesia with one of the last orang-utans on the planet. It’s incredible when you think about it.
LEIF COCKS: It’s frightening, really, that’s what it is.
CLARE CAMPBELL: The orang-utan is such a charismatic species, if we can’t get people to protect the orang-utan and as a result protect the habitat, then we may as well just wipe everything out. We have to focus on little areas like this, excuse me, What’s in there!
LEIF COCKS: That’s too good television. This is a family show.
LIAM BARTLETT: Definitely a male, Clare. We found this last refuge of the orang-utan, a remote national park, at the end of a long-disused logging road. It’s a terrifying ride. With breakdowns and broken bridges it took us 10 hours to travel just 30 kilometres.
LEIF COCKS: It’s going to be a bit of a hard walk.
LIAM BARTLETT: Clare and Leif are key players in a daring experiment - establishing a new population of orang-utans to halt their rapid slide into extinction.
LIAM BARTLETT: Hey, look at that. That’s amazing isn’t it.
CLARE CAMPBELL: Hey, beautiful girl. This forest has been set aside as a sanctuary. Some were pets, confiscated from backyard cages, others were bred in zoos and set free. The plan now is that they breed in the wild.
CLARE CAMPBELL: By putting the best selection of orangs that we can out in this habitat that’s protected, our ultimate goal is that they’ll reproduce soon.
LIAM BARTLETT: Many babies very quickly?
CLARE CAMPBELL: We hope so.
LIAM BARTLETT: The word orang-utan literally means “person of the forest” but their forests are vanishing. It is estimated a thousand of them die each year in a mad scramble to clear land, and there are only 7,000 left. Do you ever stop and think we are going to run out of time?
CLARE CAMPBELL: That’s always in the back of our mind but, I guess, we have to be a little more positive about it. Otherwise you just give up. To us there has to be a sense of hope. That that’s not going to be the case. I guess that’s why we just keep trying. He just undid my pants! You are cheeky!
LIAM BARTLETT: Orang-utans spend almost every minute of their lives up in the forest canopy, these trees provide a whopping 99% of the food they need to survive. Trouble is, the forest is getting harder and harder to find, and it’s not surprising when you take a look at this! This slash-and-burn is happening at a record rate right across the country. Even in national parks.
LIAM BARTLETT: They’ve got the chainsaw out in full force today, this sort of destruction must make your stomach turn, does it?
CLARE CAMPBELL: Yeah, we should be standing in the middle of the jungle full of wildlife and instead we are listening to chainsaws.
LIAM BARTLETT: 20 years ago Indonesia gave a green light to the palm oil industry to plunder its forests. The nation had 10% of the world’s remaining tropical forests, but these sprawling palm plantations are now chewing them up at a phenomenal rate. One estimate says an area the size of a football field is cleared every two seconds.
EMMY HAFILD: These are big, big people, big money, yeah. The richest of the richest in this country.
LIAM BARTLETT: Emmy Hafild investigates the palm oil industry for Greenpeace. Why is your government letting it happen?
EMMY HAFILD: I don’t, I don’t know how to answer that question. I think this driven by the profit and the powerful palm oil industry lobby, yeah.
LIAM BARTLETT: The man heading that palm oil lobby, Mr.. Derom Bangun, says the burning of forests happens all over the world.
DEROM BANGUN: Just like when you have fires last year, where, in Spain, in United States, sometimes near Sydney, when I was in Sydney.
LIAM BARTLETT: Palm seeds are pressed for their oil. It’s used in a massive variety of foods, toiletries and cosmetics even bio-fuels. The world’s biggest food companies can’t get enough of it. This liquid gold rush has made Indonesia the world’s leading exporter. But with money literally growing on trees, the industry is out of control. So there are still a lot of palm oil industry people out there doing the wrong thing?
DEROM BANGUN: Yes.
LIAM BARTLETT: So, what are you going to do to stop them?
DEROM BANGUN: Well, the government should enforce the law, that’s law that they will not cut the trees, will not cut the forests.
LIAM BARTLETT: If you knew a company was doing the wrong thing, would you report them?
DEROM BANGUN: Yes.
LIAM BARTLETT: Have you ever reported a palm oil company?
DEROM BANGUN: No.
LIAM BARTLETT: Not one?
DEROM BANGUN: Not one. LIAM BARTLETT: In all the forests that’s been chopped down?
DEROM BANGUN: We are not supposed to go there and find… look. It is not our job.
LIAM BARTLETT: Back in the jungle, Clare and Leif are on the hunt for one ape in particular - an orang-utan named Temara. Will she recognise you when she sees you, Leif?
LEIF COCKS: Oh yes, orang-utans remember you forever.
LIAM BARTLETT: There’s a very special connection. Temara was born at Perth Zoo and they reared her for 15 years. More than a year ago they opened the gate of a quarantine cage and released her into the Sumatran forest.
CLARE CAMPBELL: Good girl!
LEIF COCKS: The first time in her life she was unsure, that her keepers were actually letting her out rather than spending their time trying to keep her in. You be careful, girl.
LIAM BARTLETT: Since then, Temara’s been roaming free. But thanks to the park rangers we know we’re closing in.
CLARE CAMPBELL: Hello gorgeous girl!
LIAM BARTLETT: Finally we spot her - 50 metres up, wondering what all the fuss is about.
CLARE CAMPBELL: Temara, hello!
LIAM BARTLETT: She looks like the queen of Sheba, up there, doesn’t she.
CLARE CAMPBELL: She thinks she is.
LIAM BARTLETT: Orang-utans spend almost all their lives alone, but with those familiar faces and the voices from her captive past, Temara seemed to want a reunion as much as Clare and Leif did.
LEIF COCKS: I think she’s looking really good. That she’s getting enough food and variety of food to keep that sort of condition on her.
CLARE CAMPBELL: You’re a good girl.
LIAM BARTLETT: Does she look exactly the same as when you saw her 15 months ago in the zoo?
CLARE CAMPBELL: I think she looks better. Well, she looks better just because of where she is. It’s where she belongs. But she certainly looks healthy, it’s great.
LIAM BARTLETT: The signs are good that Temara’s adapting well. Having even one more orang-utan in the wild means a lot when numbers are so critical. But they’re not the only apes being wiped out by the destruction of Indonesia’s forests. This is the silvery gibbon. No-one knows for sure but there may be just 400 left.
CLARE CAMPBELL: How can you not love gibbons? I just love them, I want to help them. And they need lots of help. I sometimes think of these guys as the forgotten apes, they don’t get anywhere near as much attention as their larger cousins but their situation is just as bad so if anything, they need more help.
LIAM BARTLETT: Is it just size?
CLARE CAMPBELL: Probably, I guess the larger mammals always appeal to most people.
LIAM BARTLETT: Is he mooning us there? Or am I…?
CLARE CAMPBELL: (Laughs) He’s mooning you.
LIAM BARTLETT: Terrific. Slowly but surely, gibbons are being rescued from the illegal pet trade and brought to this refuge near Jakarta.
CLARE CAMPBELL: Oh my God, he’s so beautiful.
LIAM BARTLETT: It’s vital to keep every last one alive, so Perth Zoo has sent their vet Karen Payne to check the new arrivals.
KAREN PAYNE: He had a heart rate of about 140, but he’s settled down a bit.
LIAM BARTLETT: But the really important stuff is going on outside in cages built in the national park, encouraging gibbons to breed. Do they make the connection easily? Are they boyfriend/girlfriend quickly?
CLARE CAMPBELL: No, they’re fussy little critters. They’re very much like humans they either like each other or they don’t.
LIAM BARTLETT: Well, they wouldn’t be happy with you if you chose them an ugly one.
CLARE CAMPBELL: No, exactly, and look at Geoffry, he’s so gorgeous, we had to try and pick a nice one for him.
LIAM BARTLETT: What would you give to see a baby?
CLARE CAMPBELL: I’d give anything to see a baby here - that’s going to be the ultimate. Oh, the ultimate would be to see a pair with a baby back out in the wild, that would be the best.
LIAM BARTLETT: Gibbons are now so rare it’s near impossible to spot them in the wild. In five years of coming here Clare has never seen one. But she agreed to take me on her latest search. After six hours in the jungle we heard a distinctive call. And there they were.
CLARE CAMPBELL: I just can’t believe how far they drop from one tree to another. There it goes!
LIAM BARTLETT: You’re really stoked at that aren’t you?
CLARE CAMPBELL: Yeah. Been waiting a long time for this.
LIAM BARTLETT: But time’s running seriously short. Indonesia is desperate to develop today, never mind what happens to the wildlife tomorrow. But no one loves these animals more than Clare and Leif and they’re in there for the fight.
CLARE CAMPBELL: All the hard work is for these guys, and to actually see some in the wild and know that they’re still there, it gives me a reason to keep going and some hope for the future for them.
