| In 1991 Dr. P went on a research project studying
orangutans in Borneo. If you like rice (for breakfast, lunch, and
dinner that is), the jungle, and one of the most fascinating primates
on the planet, this trip is for you!
The location has been in
several National Geographic magazines, and has been the subject of
numerous documentaries.
Orang-utan means "man of the forest". Please note there is no "G" at
the end of orangutan, although most people incorrectly pronounce the
word as if there is one.
Borneo is the 3rd largest island in the
world and is made up of three countries; Indonesia, Malaysia, and
Brunei. Of the three, Indonesia by far makes up the largest segment
(the orange area on the map below),
and is called Kalimantan. The blue arrow on the map below denotes
the location of the research project, called Tanjung Puting
National Park. It is in a camp called Camp Leakey, named after the
famous anthropologist Lewis Leakey.
Just getting to Borneo is an
adventure in
itself. From Los angeles you
fly to Hawaii, then on to Sydney, and eventually to Jakarta. As you can
imagine this takes several days.
To get to Borneo you have to go through
Jakarta. It is teeming with
people, and makes the LA freeway system look like amateur hour compared
to the traffic in Jakarta. This picture was taken at the only time
there was any space between us and the other vehicles on the road. The
rest of the time it was literally bumper to bumper traffic anywhere
you went.
Once in Jakarta you have to fly over
the Java sea into Borneo to a town called Pangkalanbun. Here are a few
of are group members on the puddle jumper that got us there.
Pangkalanbun has a
small hospital
that houses baby orangutans that have been confiscated by the
government from people who held them illegally.
Some of them were sick so Dr. P gave them exams (officially, this is
the longest house call the Long Beach Animal Hospital has ever made!).
It is quite an
experience to examine a group of inquisitive baby
orangutans. Oh sure, its starts off OK,
but that is just the calm before the storm.....
First thing you do is call
in an assistant, to no avail of course........
......so
the next thing you
do is
call in another assistant. Lets see, there are 3 of us, and one of him,
and you can guess who won!
We use
the term "exam" loosely when describing this experience, because
when you are finished you are not sure who examined whom!
After Pangkalanbun you start
a two day journey upriver to your final destination called Camp
Leakey. The boat you take is called a klotok. These men on the
boat will be assisting us and running the camp. They are called dayaks,
and actually grew up in the forest. As a matter of fact, they are
ancestors of the headhunters of Borneo. They are intimately in tune
with the jungle and have indispensable knowledge. Camp rules
dictated that none of us volunteers were allowed to go into the jungle
without them. Some of the most fun on the trip was teaching them
American slang.
Dr. P couldn't resist the view from the top as we puttered our way
upstream for several days.
Some of the more
fascinating aspects of the trip occur during this 2 day river ride.
These are people who spend their lives along the river.
Watching the jungle pass
by and observing the wildlife in the trees and water makes the trip
worthwhile all by itself. This is a proboscis monkey
As we got closer to our
final destination the jungle became denser, and the water darker, from
the decaying vegetation.
As you go deeper into the jungle the
vegetation becomes impassable in some areas. On one occasion our boat
driver had to dive under the boat to remove palm fronds that became
wrapped around the propellor.
Half way through this two day trip you
stop and go through the paperwork to get a permit to enter Tanjung
Puting National Park. Consistent with Indonesian culture this may take
one hour or several days! During this respite you stay at a place
called Rimba camp and interact with the local tribes and animals. As
you can see its easy to make new friends.
You meet some very interesting people to
say the least.
Eventually you arrive at
Camp Leakey and begin your work. There is a welcoming committee
that meets you at the dock.
The dock into the camp is
quite long. In the early years of Camp Leakey there was no dock and
you had to walk through the swamp to unload.
Lets take a little tour of our
luxury camp. It was pretty thoughtful of Ritz-Carlton to build a
tourist hotel
in the middle of the jungle for us.
This is our kitchen on the
right and the dining room on the left.
As you can see our kitchen is well stocked with all the latest
amenities. Guess what they are boiling the water for?
This is the bathroom on the left with our
penthouse suites behind it.
We had 3 men and 9 women on our trip. The 3 men stayed downstairs and
had plenty of room (and quiet).
The 9 ladies stayed upstairs. This is a
picture of when they first arrived.
Same room 5 minutes after they unpacked
their bags.
This is a muslim country, so all shoes
come of when entering.
This interesting character "hung around" our quarters often. This
is a white faced Gibbon. We would wake up to Gibbon's hooting early in
the
AM. They looked cute, but we were emphatically warned not to attempt to
touch them- they move like lightning and will bite visciously.
Evening meals were a social occasion.
There were researchers from around the world studying primates in their
native habitat. Of course you know by now what is inside the green
bucket in the front of the photo.
A typical day started well before sun
up. We would follow one of the dayaks into the jungle for a day of
looking for wild orangutans. If we were lucky to find one we would
follow it all day until nightfall, then go back the next morning before
it awoke and continue our observations.
This dayak is leading the
way over wooden planks out of the camp. They are a huge help
during the rainy season when the water is do deep you cannot see where
you are walking.
Orangutans spend almost all
of their time in trees, so a large part
of our day was spent with our necks in this lovely position
If we found an orangutan we made continual observations.
The jungle is hot and humid, and if we came across an orang we would
put up our hammocks and observe in a more comfortable manner.
Ah finally, after all the
traveling, we came across the animal
that Dr. P wanted to see- a wild orangutan deep in the jungle of
Borneo. In this case it is a juvenile
male.
Dr. P made friends with Mr.
Uil, probably the most knowledgeable man at
the camp. He is a dayak that was literally born in the jungle. He
married an American woman that came to volunteer at the camp years
earlier.
He took Dr. P on a special
tour of the jungle one day. We were in the thickest swamp in the area.
Note the long sleeves and the gloves.
Mr. Uil picked up some leaves and called in some deer. They are called
barking deer because they make a barking sound when alarmed. Amazing
things in the jungle.....
I learned about insect
eating plants......
......rubber trees........
....and how to set a trap
for a
wild pig (just in case we ran out of rice!).
It was an awesome time
to be in this jungle with an expert seeing and experiencing the flora
and fauna of Borneo that Dr. P read about growing up. Can you guess why
Mr. Uil has his socks pulled up over the outside of his pants?
Some of the best photographic
opportunities occur
around camp when orangutans that have been recently confiscated in
Jakarta and Singapore, and released at camp Leakey, return once daily
for a free meal
of rice and milk. This was an important meal since they did not yet
have the knowledge to meet all their nutritional needs on their own.
The large males have this knowledge, and it takes time for these
females to assimilate this information.
Feeding time was 4 PM, and
the females would gather in the trees along the wooden dock in
anticipation. You could get within a few feet of them for your photo's.
When the food came they
would quickly come down from the trees.
The feeding frenzy would start soon
after.......
......this was the time
to move in and start shooting!
Love that little one's hairdo!
Most of the young ones would run in, stuff their faces, and run out.
Others had a different feeding
technique.....
...while others gave us the universal
gesture known round the world! I guess she wasn't as thrilled with our
appearance as the other orang's.
Of course, any time you find females
there will be males hanging around
in the trees. Lets just say they aren't there for the food. When
several males congregate they sometimes fight. Fortunately the males
ignored us.
On occasion one of them would come down from his perch and make an
appearance.
When he started moving towards the food
all of the other
orangutans scrambled out of his way.
He would grab a small
handful of rice and
leave. He probably wasn't hungry, just curious about which females were
receptive to him.
Some of the smaller creatures found
innovative ways to get to the rice!
A typical adult male will
weigh 160#,
but has the strength of many
large men. Their arms are extremely powerful, and as you can see, and
their
hands are huge. When one of them grabs you it is like being in a vice
grip. They could literally drag you into a tree and there is nothing
you can do about it.
If one grabbed you it was necessary to
bribe your way our of their
grasp by giving them gum, or believe it or not, bar soap to chew on.
Here is Dr. P paying the toll to get off the bridge.
Yup, they love soap, and will eat it for
hours!
Some of the orangutans that
hang around camp are very friendly and crave human companionship.
Others put on a show, as you will soon see.
Everything you give them
goes in their mouths.......
..... and comes out again
several times.
Compare this humanoid's arms and hands to this mature male orang's. Now
you can visualize how powerful they are.
As strong as they are they are intimidated by this small man who is in
charge of the camp.
Those are Frosted Flakes in case you were wondering.
Hmmmm, wonder how they learned this one ......
.....and even harder to figure how they learned to play drunk!
We took a day off and went to an area that had been strip
mined. You can see how much damage this does to the forest, and is the
prime reason orangutans are highly endangered.
The area is totally devoid
of trees. In Borneo trees are cut down for
timber and mining. Even though we were in a protected area, there is
lax enforcement and rampant corruption.
A small shanty town built up around the mine.
These children will spend most of their lives, if not all of their
lives, in this environment.
In this mine they are
looking for gold.
Notice the poor condition of their teeth. This is a major problem in
most developing countries. Dentists, tooth brushing, and flossing, are
alien concepts.
This is a merchant that
makes his living selling goods to the miners. Again, notice his teeth.
He was quite friendly, and
tried to sell us Schwarzenegger bags. Notice how he spelled
Schwarzenegger
Our last day was quite
heartwarming. The staff gave us a going away party. They felt honored
we came as far as we did to literally give them paying jobs for 2
weeks, so many of them gave a small speech as a token of their
appreciation.
Everyone showed up and
patiently waited for the festivities to begin.
Even our cook gave a
speech thanking us for coming to camp Leakey. Maybe one day we will see
her on the Food Channel hosting a show called "Making Rice the Camp
Leakey
Way". Did you notice the two
National Geographic magazines on the wall? You saw them at the
beginning of this presentation.
Time to bring out the presents. They gave each of us a hardwood spear
that had a metal blade at the end and could also shoot darts. The
airlines were thrilled when we brought them on board the plane home!
We spent the next several
hours dancing to many local songs. The small man in front is in charge
of the camp, and is the same man you saw earlier giving the huge male
orang a cup of coffee. He weighs about 90 pounds, and all the
orangutans run from
him.
This young dayak played the
guitar for us. Too bad he only new one song- Hey Jude. Do you know what
it is like to listen to this song over and over for several hours?
The next morning before our
return boat arrived they taught us how to use the spears to shoot
arrows. We
were not very good.
We say good bye to
Tanjung Putin National Park and Camp Leakey with one last group photo.
To learn more about orangutans Dr. P
gives community
slide presentations on his trip. The slide show takes about an hour and
is a fascinating arm-chair adventure. The pictures on this web site are
only a small sample of the whole presentation. If you have a group
located in the immediate Los angeles area that is interested in seeing
this presentation, please contact him at the hospital. The number is
(562) 434-9966.
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