Wani Care Foundation

On Thursday 4^th and Friday 5^th of November Wanicare and PPSC went to the expedition HCPSN (Hari Cinta Puspa dan Satwa Nasional) what can be translated in “day of love for National Flora and Fauna”  in the parking area of West Java governance headquarter called Gedung Sate in Bandung.

The aim of the exhibition was to give information and awareness to people about the protection of wild animals, why not keeping them as pets and not to hunt animals in the forest.

The Expedition was officially opened by the vice governor of West Java Dede Yusuf. Who was in the past a famous actor in Indonesia and played in many famous movies in the years of 1980-1990. In 2008 he was elected as Governor of West Java.

We had our own stand on this expedition where we gave information about our work by talking to the visitors and giving our information flyer. In this stand we also sold our t-shirts, stickers and pins.

There was live traditional music played by conservatorium students of Bandung.

On 22-10-2010 PPSC received two python’s from Agus (supplier of PPSC who sells ant eggs to us). A friend of Agus catched the two pythons’s a week earlier out of the wild! The idea of this man was to sell them! Agus contact us about it and arrange with his friend to handing them over to PPSC. 

The two python’s are a male and a female who we give the names Agus and Augustine. Augustine the female was wounded in her neck, this because the man who cought them did this with a rope! We gave her immediately medical care after se arrived in PPSC. Happily the wounds heal quickly and after being a month in PPSC we could release them back to the place where they came from; Sagaranten, about 30 km from Cikananga. In Sagaranten there is a big forest where many small wild animals are living. Of course first we had a hard word with the Agus about what his friend did. He will make sure now that this will not happen again.

Yesterday 21-11-2010 in the early morning we drove with our car and the two python’s to Sagaranten where we walked far into the forest. We found a good place for them near a river where we released them again. It was so great to see them back in the forest again where they belong.

On the way back we suddenly saw a female pig tail macaque sitting in a small cage full in the sun! We stopped to see how the animal was doing and it was in bad shape, the skin was red and little swollen probably from the sun, se had almost no hair anymore on her arms and legs. There was no water inside the cage and there was no shelter for her to hide for the sun and rain! We gave it water, she was so thirsty! And we put a plate that we found on the cage so se could hide from the sun.
We wanted to talk with the owner to ask here to hand over to us but they were not at home. We talked with some people who live next to the owner and who where also family. They told us that they didn’t want to hand her over to us because they loved the animal! The problem with macaques is that they are not protected, so it is not illegal to have them as a pet! The only way we can rescue these animals is by trying to convince the owner to give it to us so that we can give the animal a good life again and hopefully this life will be back in the free nature. For now we couldn’t do anything, but we talked already with the local police and they will try to help us. So this week we will go back together with the police, hopefully this will make more impression and is the owner willing to give the macaque to us.

To be continued…

As everyone could have read in the updates of our website about Noni and Dodo, we where still so far not able to move them to a permanent place or to a rehabilitation center. Happily we have good news for Noni and Dodo! We still can not translocate them, but we have received funding from Orang-utan Outreach to prepare a new cage for them. They defiantly grow out of their cage in which they are sitting in now. Of course we also never thought they would be in PPSC for such a long time! With the funding that we got from Orang-utan Outreach we started now with the preparing of two big carnivore cages that are not in use right now. We hope that we will be finished with the preparations of this cage very soon so that we can move them there. We hope to move Noni and Dodo to Yogyakarta where they are starting a new orang-utan center at the moment.

To be continued… 

 PPSC is involved in a new project. SERO (Supportive Environments for the Region’s Otters) is the name of the project. Sero is Sundanese for otter, Sundanese is the local language the locals speak here in Cikananga.

 SERO is a partnership between PPSC (Cikananga Wild Life Center), JAAN (Jakarta Animal Aid Network), IOSF) International Otter Survival Fund and member of IUCN’s otter Specialist Group (OSG)

 Our priority is to provide a save rehabilitation space for otters with the aim of reintroduction to the wild. Other priorities are; improved husbandry of captive otters, an education program to raise public awareness about otters and their environments, moves towards protected status for the Asian short clawed otter and sustainable/ protected environments for wild populations.

 PPSC has been identified as the ideal place to begin the rehabilitation process.

Very little professional work, perhaps none, has been done on the rehabilitation and release of Asian shortclaw otters. PPSC has three shortclaw otters in the centre at the moment; Merci, Lenci and Nessie.

 Humane Society International (Australia) have fully funded the creation of a rehabilitation pen for the otters at PPSC. We started with the preparing work on the new otter pen. As soon as this area is “otter proof” we will move our otters in and start the rehabilitation process with the aim of releasing them back into the wild. Of course we hope that we can rehabilitate many otters in the future and release them back into their natural habitat.