Matt's Intro to Lorises

Our new volunteer Matt is having a great time getting to know our lorises.  After only a few weeks of observations he’s already picking up the individual personality of each loris.  See an excerpt from his personal blog below:

Matt and Jennifer in the field.

The last three nights of observation have been amazing.  Each night, I’ve thought to myself wow, I’m so lucky- I’m sure they don’t get this close to the animals every night.  But each night has exceeded my expectations.  It’s just amazing to see these creatures move through the trees right before your eyes.  They seem like little teddy bears climbing through the branches, but with a precision and grace that I never thought possible. They seem to anticipate where every tree and every branch is before they reach it.  More times than once, I found myself thinking that the animal was going to slip and fall 7 meters to the forest floor below, but each time they seemed to know just the right place to grab to steady themselves and keep moving.

Each loris that I’ve observed so far has seemed to have its own distinct personality. Tahini is the most accepting of the presence of humans watching her, and just goes about her business as if nothing is amiss.  She is also a tireless climber who never seems to take breaks.  She travelled over 200m for the few hours we were observing her the other night.  

 

A curious Tahini.

 Ena is a bit older than Tahini, and definitely not as active.  When we watched her the other night, she was just curled up in a ball from 10:30-11:30pm (an hour when lorises are usually very active) just watching the world go by.  Maybe she was just looking out for her daughter, Wingki, who was climbing around 20m away.  

 

Good mother Ena.

 Charlie, who we followed last night, seemed to resent the spectators.  She (yes, Charlie is a girl!) was very alert when the red lights were on her – red parafilm is used over our spotlights so they don’t disturb the animal – and always seemed to be staring at me during the times I was staring at her.  When I turned my lights away from her to write down a data point however, she liked to high tail it out of the area I was in.   

Our girl Charlie.

Finally Mo, who we only observed from about 4:30-5:00am last night, was just getting ready for bed so I didn’t really get a good sense of his personality. There are a total of 10 lorises with the radio collars, 4 of which I have already observed.  I am looking forward to learning the personalities of all the others!

Fond Farewells and Happy Greetings

As often happens in field projects like ours, we’ve had a shuffle of old and new volunteers and PhD candidates these past few weeks.  We said goodbye to Johanna Rode who has finished with her field work and is back in England to begin the write-up of her results.  We welcomed old friend and new PhD candidate Tatiana Iseborn who will attempt to learn even more about these elusive species.  Our beloved volunteer Jennifer has left to visit family in Surabaya before heading back to America and we greeted new volunteer Matt Leonard who is currently soaking up all he can about lorises.  Many fond farewells and happy greetings for the month. 

T. Iseborn in the field.

Tatiana Iseborn completed her Master’s in Primate Conservation at Oxford Brookes University in England.  Her field studies focused on population surveys and acquisition of local hunting patterns of pygmy slow lorises in northeastern Cambodia.  While there, she closely lived and worked with Julia Hill (our field station coordinator in Java) who was completing her own Master’s project assessing the local knowledge and trade routes of local primate species.  Living and working together in the stressful conditions of the field is not easy, but these two have a strong working relationship and are looking forward to their time together in Java.

Tatiana will be continuing the nightly observations of our lorises and adding a few new research questions of her own.  Her first visit to the forest for observations was very successful and she was amazed by how easily you can spot the lorises here and was able to spend time with our loris Shirley and family.  During her time in Cambodia she was able to see only 5 lorises from afar so you can understand her excitement!

T. Iseborn schooling volunteers on insect trapping.

Great teamwork with T. Iseborn and J. Hill!

Matt Leonard comes to us from Brown University in America.  He will be staying as a volunteer for 6 weeks and assist us with our nightly data collection, education programs and online media outreach.  His enthusiasm and willingness to learn and try new things is exactly what we look for in a volunteer and we look forward to getting to know each other better in the next 1.5 months.  Lucky Matt was able to see lorises his first night in Cipaganti! 

T. Iseborn, Matt Leonard, Jennifer and tracker Aconk.

Consistency is never the norm in field work and we look forward to working and living with our new arrivals while saying a fond goodbye (for now!) to our departures.

The Horror Show: Fuel for the Fire

Juvenile long-tailed macaque.

This month there has been a lot of focus on the illegal wildlife trade in Indonesia.  Jakarta is home to some of the most notorious animal markets in the world while Bali, which claims to be a peaceful vacation destination, has civet farms and sells traditional medicine containing the body parts of endangered species.  Though many species are protected by law (e.g. Javan slow loris) this does nothing to curb the trade because there is no enforcement.   Going on market surveys is a necessary and painful part of the job which allows us to gain even more resolve and ammunition in our fight for conservation.

Entrance to animal market.

Jakarta is home to three infamous animal markets known for trading exotic and endangered species.  This week, we visited the bird and animal markets in Jatinigara.  The animals are displayed in tiny cages lined up alongside a bustling roadway.  All cages are in full sun and most have neither food nor water for the animals housed inside.  These markets cater to all manner of customer.  You can find a domestic cat or dog and for the more adventurous they offer slow lorises, monitor lizards, long-tailed macaques, owls, otters and civets.  Though we saw nearly 20 slow lorises, an infant leopard cat and 4 otter infants the sellers did not allow us to take photos of most illegal species.  You can see a wider variety of beautiful and endangered species in an animal market than you could see in a month’s worth of searching in Java’s remaining forests. 

Juvenile civet.

Infant tree shrew.

Infant long-tailed macaque.

Adult monitor lizard.

Infant turtles.

Green tree lizards.

The circumstances that these animals are presented in are heart-breaking.  Even more disturbing is the thought of how many more animals had to die in the process of capture or transport.  The faces you see in the markets are not the only victims.  Typically, several animals die in transit or due to stress of capture for every one represented in the markets.  What can be done?  Use this outrage to fuel the fire.  We are working on educating local law enforcement so that they can recognize which species are protected.  Spread the message to anyone and everyone you know that buying an animal in these markets may save one animal but will inevitably cause more captures and deaths to fuel the trade.  Know what you are buying.  Kopi luwak (civet coffee) is sold as a luxury item alongside traditional medicines containing ingredients such as slow loris bones.  Knowledge is power.  Localized education efforts in areas (like Cipaganti) where animals are often captured for the trade can put a stop to this horror show.  Working together we can make a positive impact for these animals.