Whew.....now that I got THAT off my chest and vented some of my frustration over the new season of Orangutan Island being a "one episode season" TO BE CONTINUED in February.....I can move on to an even more frustrating and serious situation. Before I get into this "serious matter" I first want to thank Rainey 2 for backing me up on the frustration of waiting all that time to only see one new OI show and have to wait to Feb to see anymore!
Most of you here on this website probably know that because of Orangutan Island I have grown to love orangutans and am dedicated to whatever I can do to save orangutans. Since I am not able to travel to Borneo or Sumatra at this time in my life and since I'm not independantly wealthy and suffering with this lousy economy as most everyone else is I do what little I can do to help save the orangutans. Every month I donate what I can to COP (the Center for Orangutan Protection in Borneo...excellent organization, by the way!) They aren't going to be able to build a new rescue center off my donations, but every little bit helps and even a little bit of U.S. money is still worth much more in Borneo! I also think very highly of NatureAlert which is an organization to rescue and save orangutans run by Sean Whyte from the United Kingdom. Mr. Whyte asks for no financial donations, but every year he personally spends weeks in Indonesia working with COP to go out and rescue orphaned and abused, illegally held orangutans. He not only pays for all of his expenses out of his own pocket, but he donates a great deal of his own money to pay for the care and housing of rescued orangutans when it's needed. He doesn't make so much as a dime for what he does for the orangutans and the countless hours of time he spends in the U.K. making calls to rescue centers, tracking down leads on orphaned orangutans, exposing corrupt Indonesian officials and palm oil plantation owners, etc. etc. There can be "no question" as to his motives for saving and caring for orangutans in need! Mr. Whytes website blog is at
www.naturealert.blogspot.com. He updates his website regularly and if you want to know the latest, no - bull information on orangutans, their situation and illegal palm oil and lumbering operations, his website is the place to find it! I highly recommend that everyone interested in orangutans at least take a look at his website. Having said that: I now come to the purpose of this posting. If you go to Mr. Whytes website you will find that he "asks" interested individuals to write and send emails to various individuals and organizations having to do with the rescue and preservation of orangutans, or the destruction of them and their habitat. An email costs you NOTHING but a little bit of your time and the pen can truly be mightier than the sword. Public pressure can move mountains when it comes to saving orangutans. Is asking people who love orangutans to do something as simple and FREE as writing emails is too much to ask??? I've been writing emails and corresponding with Mr. Whyte for quite some time now and I can assure you that he NEVERS ASKS for nor do I believe he would ever accept donations to NatureAlert. If someone wanted to donate financially to help the orangutans I suspect he would reccomend donating to COP!
The chance of orangutans in the wild becoming extinct is VERY REAL and I'm shocked at how much their chance of survival has declined in just the short period of time I've been involved with their preservation! Thousands of orangutans are murdered every year, some of them eaten by Indonesians, the babies always taken to be sold illegally if the baby wasn't accidently killed in the course of it's mother being murdered.....often times hacked to death with a machette! A large number of Indonesians look at orangutans as nothing more than pests or vermin, to be killed on sight. Others see them as a meal with the added benefit of taking the baby to sell in the black market! In spite of it being illegal to kill an orangutan or sell an orangutan it is well known that palm oil plantation operators often pay a bounty to their workers for every orangutan they kill! The really unfortunate thing is that the Indonesian government feels pretty much the same way...that orangutans are nothing more than pests to be killed and sold in the black market NO MATTER WHAT THE GOVERNMENT says publicly! Publicly they "claim" to be enforcing the United Nations ban on the killing and illegal selling or transporting of orangutans, but anyone on the ground in Borneo knows better! Now here is where I tell you just how serious and critical the situation in Borneo has become for orangutans....ALL ORANGUTANS!
The government there and the plantation owners who publicly claim to be doing everything they can to save the orangutans has a new goal or directive that should SHOCK each and every one of us! While Nyrau Menteng (home of Orangutan Island) is the best known of all the rescue centers in Borneo because of the TV show, there are several more rescue centers and most all of them are near or at full capacity with orphaned and rescued orangutans. The Indonesian government which claims to be workig to save the orangutans has declared that by 2015 they will no longer have or allow any orangutans in any rescue or rehabilitation centers in Borneo!
That would include Nyrau Menteng/ Orangutan Island! That would be an absolute and certain death blow for thousands and thousands of orangutans including those currently in the rescue centers as well as all future baby orangutans whose mothers are murdered! There will be NO PLACE for those orangutans to go and one doesn't have to have much of an imagination to figure out what will happen to the orangutans both in the wild and in the rescue centers! In the past some government officials (but few) could be motivated enough to go out and actually confiscate illegally kept orangutans which are often times being held to sell on the black market. The information that I have now claims that the government has completely stopped rescuing orangutans! More detailed information is currently posted on
www.naturealert.blogspot.comI ask or plead if necessary for everyone who reads this post to go to that website and read it for yourself. I can not stress strongly enough about how DIRE the situation for orangutans is in Borneo (and Sumatra for that matter!) is, and how rapidly the situation continues to deteriorate there! PlEASE will YOU help the orangutans and send emails to those people listed on NatureAlert!
Before closing let me just add that from what I've read on NatureAlert I must now wonder if the reason for only ONE new show of Orangutan Island might not have something to do with pressure from the Indonesian government against the show??? I don't know that for a fact, I'm just "thinking it might be!" Thank you for reading my post and if you will be so kind and generous as to send some emails on behalf of the orangutans I would be DOUBLE THANKFUL to YOU!
Dave
Alphaone
the world needs good programming about the animal kingdom) and now it is gone, in AP graces. PBS had great animal shows back in the day. Mutual of Omaha Wildkingdom had a great show in the early years, that AP has on now so hopefully the animal shows will come back on the regular networks.
Orangutans are the world's most interesting creatures yet they get so little recognition, I think if the media gave orangutans a bit more attention and recognition, and gave people an opportunity to learn about orangutans, they would be just as socially prized as pandas.