Wildlife Rescue in the Archipelago: The Work of Profauna Indonesia by David Pinault
The first gibbon I ever met in Indonesia was a three-year-old tawny-furred female named Beruntung. The word means lucky. She earned her name the hard way. Captured by poachers and taken from her forest environment on the island of Sumatra, she was caged and put up for sale in one of Java’s numerous animal markets. A family in the city of Malang bought her for amusement and kept her confined as a pet. Somehow Beruntung managed to escape and ran out into the street, only to be struck by a tricycle rickshaw—an accident that left her with a crippled right hand.
And that’s when Beruntung got lucky. A non-profit organization called ProFauna Indonesia learned of her and gave her a home in a spacious habitat at ProFauna’s wildlife rescue center in the forested hill country of East Java. ProFauna originated in 1994, when Rosek Nursahid, a Javanese animal-rights activist, first began to mobilize volunteers to try to stop the flourishing black-market industry of animal trafficking. Many people are aware of the extensive logging that is destroying woodlands in Borneo, Sumatra, and West Papua. Less well-publicized is the tragedy suffered by Indonesian wildlife as a consequence of deforestation.
Poachers—who find their access facilitated by roads carved through the jungle by the logging corporations’ bulldozers—net thousands of members of endangered species, from pangolins to orangutans. Some of these captive animals—like Lucky the gibbon—are sold as pets to Indonesian households. Others are trafficked all over the world. Many are shipped via cargo boats to mainland Southeast Asia and then smuggled via freight trucks across the border to southern China. There the animals are butchered, their organs used as ingredients for aphrodisiacs and traditional medicines.
Under Rosek Nursahid’s leadership, ProFauna has fought to stem this trade, urging the Indonesian government to enact and enforce legislation to protect the nation’s endangered wildlife. ProFauna staff and volunteers visit animal markets in Javanese ports such as Surabaya, where they identify dealers trafficking in protected species.
After confiscation by the police, many of these animals find refuge in ProFauna’s rescue center, where they receive medical attention and are prepared for release into what remains of Indonesia’s forests.
Such efforts will do little long-term good unless people acknowledge the urgent need to become environmental stewards. ProFauna knows this. Throughout the year its Wildlife Education Center (located alongside ProFauna’s animal rescue facilities in the vicinity of Malang) hosts programs for Indonesians from various backgrounds—university undergraduates, farmers, government forestry officials—as well as programs in which foreign volunteers may participate. ProFauna’s founder considers especially important the ecology camps it runs for Indonesian schoolchildren. “By educating them in environmental awareness and respect for animals,” he told me in an interview, “we are investing in the next generation.”
The educational dimension of ProFauna’s work is evident everywhere at its camp. A meeting hall features a large color poster that reads Hentikan perdagangan daging kera (“Put a stop to the trade in monkey meat”). The accompanying photo shows a butcher’s knife, a bloodstained axe, and the severed head of a primate: a disturbing—but effective—reminder of the violence poachers inflict on animals.
Posted in bathrooms and above sinks are signs that remind visitors, “Remember that not only humans, but also animals and plants, need this water to lead their lives.”
An obvious message? Perhaps, but one that is needed. As Rosek reminded me, “Like teenagers in the West, many young Indonesians nowadays have no more exposure to nature than what they see on TV. Traditional culture is being neglected, and with it an awareness of animals and the wild.”
My days as a volunteer with ProFauna began before first light, as I lay in bed hearing the call to prayer broadcast by muezzins from the nearby village, followed by a dawn chorus of loud swooping cries from the gibbons resident at the camp. I was integrated into the daily round of chores linked to the care and rehabilitation of the animals at the center: food preparation, cleaning out cages and habitats, and interacting directly with the animals inside their habitats.
The most challenging—and the most satisfying—job was serving as a veterinary assistant during surgery on injured animals. For several days I helped Dr. Wulan, a skilled veterinarian, as she performed operations. One day we treated Reevo, a Sumatran gibbon whose skin was infested with parasites. The next we sutured a Javanese leaf-monkey’s torn foot. (Within 48 hours the sutures tore open, forcing us to stitch the wound again, so this was one monkey’s paw with which I became well acquainted.)
Among my most vivid—and emotionally wrenching—memories: a visit with ProFauna staffers to Surabaya’s pasar burung (“bird market,” where in fact all kinds of animals are sold). Here, as elsewhere throughout the archipelago, traffickers sell members of protected species. ProFauna has taken the lead in documenting and exposing such instances of illegal trafficking.
In these markets it helps to have a strong stomach. Thousands of animals are crammed into cages in hot airless sheds. One enclosure held sparrows that had been spray-painted with metallic hard-gloss purples and reds. Why do this to them, I asked. “To draw customers,” was the reply.
Another enclosure held a magnificent serpent-eagle confined to a cage so small it could neither stand nor flex its wings. A dealer amused himself trying to force a banana down its throat. The bird refused with a fierce unyielding toss of its head.
Nearby a dozen monkeys watched as we passed. Each was chained by the neck. Their eyes commanded attention. Plain to see were all too recognizable emotions—dejection, anger, despair. Mereka sungguh-sungguh menderita, said the ProFauna staffer at my side: “They really do suffer.”
They really do suffer. This is a good summary of ProFauna’s message, a message of environmental awareness and compassion that has brought together Indonesians of every faith and background—along with foreigners from around the world—to serve as volunteers who learn a common lesson: safeguarding wild animals leads us to rediscover our shared humanity.
For further information please contact:
profauna@profauna.org
David Pinault is an associate professor of religious studies at Santa Clara University (USA) and is a member of ProFauna Indonesia’s Advisory Board.
