His cage is so cramped that he is unable to stand. He rocks backwards and forwards, arms folded across his chest as he chews on a foil food wrapper that he has picked from the pile of rubbish under his cage.
Jingo, 5, has been forced to live in these conditions for months — but this orang-utan is lucky: the woman tickling him through the bars, momentarily making him forget his distress and break into a stubby-toothed grin, is a British vet about to take him to a rescue centre.
Others are not so fortunate. The animals, squeezed by the destruction of the forests where they live, have increasingly become the victims of trappers who supply an illegal trade in orang-utans as pets.
International Animal Rescue (IAR), a charity in East Sussex which runs projects in Britain and Asia, opened a centre two months ago in the West Kalimantan region of Indonesian Borneo. It was concerned by reports of a rising number of young orang-utans being kept in captivity in terrible conditions. As swaths of Borneo’s jungle continues to be destroyed by logging and oil plantation companies, the endangered primates have become increasingly vulnerable to hunters who kill adults for meat and sell the babies.
The trade is illegal but forestry officials say that action is rarely taken against those who are found keeping wild animals as pets.
“This is a growing problem. As the forests are cleared it is easier for people to find the orang-utans,” Karmele Llano Sanchez, the veterinary director of IAR in Indonesia, said. “Mother orang-utans often have two young ones with them. The hunters will kill the mother and the older baby, and take the littlest one to sell to the pet trade. Baby orang-utans are with their mothers constantly during the first years of their lives, and it is extremely distressing for them [to be parted].”
Mr Sanchez said that the orang-utans were often considered to be status symbols and many were sold to villagers. After they pass the “cute baby” stage however they frequently become aggressive and are confined to tiny cages or tethered on short chains. Others are taken to the capital, Jakarta, where dealers sell them for thousands of pounds to buyers from Thailand, Japan, Saudi Arabia and occasionally Europe.
“About 40 to 50 per cent of the babies won’t survive long after being captured,” Mr Sanchez said. “Often they don’t get enough food or even water, and the food they do get is usually the wrong kind, so they end up malnourished and vulnerable to disease.”
Heading to the centre with Jingo is Charlie, an 11-year-old who was found at a house where he had been tethered next to an open sewer. Rickets, which is caused by malnutrition, has stunted his growth. His story was used by the organisation to promote a fundraising appeal in Britain to create the rescue centre, an operation which is unique in West Kalimantan.
Within its first three months IAR has rescued nine orang-utans and identified 20 more in captivity in the immediate vicinity. The team knows that there are many more still to find and the animals who arrive at the centre will not be mature enough to be released for many years.
Animal welfare is a low priority for many in Indonesia. Those involved in trying to protect the orang-utans claim that the influence of the palm-oil industry holds more sway with the Government than those who are fighting to protect the forests where the animals live.
Pak Samosir, the head of the local government forestry department in Ketapang, where the rescue centre is based, said: “We need proper laws and more efficient regulation to help save the land.
“The Government should ensure there is as much land set aside for forest as there is for palm plantations.”
The illegal capture of wild animals carries a five-year prison term but despite his enthusiasm for animal protection, Mr Samosir said that his department had not arrested anyone for such an offence in the year that he has been in charge.
Within moments of arriving at his new home in the centre Jingo was climbing and swinging from a tyre. After an hour he was lolling around among a pile of leaves and holding hands with Charlie, who was settling in next door.
For the moment these two are safe but for most of Borneo’s orang-utans the threat of habitation loss and capture continues.
“The most important thing that can be done to stop what is happening to these orang-utans is to protect the forest,” said Mr Sanchez. “If they still had the forest to live in, this wouldn’t be going on.”
Life in the tree tops
— The world population of orang-utans has fallen from about 315,000 in 1900 to only 70,000 today — making it an endangered species. The only wild populations are in the rainforests of Indonesia and Malaysia, which suffer from deforestation. Only two species, the Bornean orang-utan and the Sumatran orang-utan, still exist
— Orang-utans are the slowest-breeding primates, with a gap of eight years between births. Females do not usually begin breeding until they are 12 and the offspring are dependant on their mother for at least five years
— Unlike many apes orang-utans cannot live without trees. They sleep in nests built in branches and travel through the tree tops, rarely descending to the forest floor
— They are closely related to humans and have been observed to use tools in the wild. They can live to the age of 50
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