The second Vonate for Aid blog entry is dedicated to the orangutans in Borneo, Malaysia.
This is an For those who are not familiar with how it works, here is the short version:
- Vonate for Aid is a helping program brought to life on Steemit to support aid organizations around the world.
- What you need to do is, just upvote this post if you want to support the Project and want to help animals threatend by extinction
- All earnings this posts gets, will be donated over to the aid organizations, in this case to the Borneo Orangutan Survival Foundation (http://orangutan.or.id/homepage)
- The average time period of collecting donations with this post is at least 7 days, I will let you know when it is ending
- to make the donation transparent, I am posting step by step photos, to proof where the money is and how it will be transferred to them. It could be possible, that I am able to personally hand over the money to the Foundation, as I am about to travel to Borneo in late august
This is Alba, a recently rescued female albino orangutan. She is 5 years old and one of a kind, there is no other known living albino orangutan today.
The orangutan is the only member of the great ape family found in Asia, all others are located in Africa. There are two species of orangutans, the Bornean orangutan and the Sumatran orangutan. In case you may see one, these are the physical characteristics:
- The Bornean orangutan (Pongo pygmaeus) has a larger body size and has dark or reddish brown short hair
- The Sumatran orangutan (pango abelii) has a smaller body size, with brighter orange hair
- In both species, male orangutans are much larger than the females, typically two to three times heavier
- Male orangutans develop, when they are between 18 and 20 years old, large cheek pads (flanges)
- Orangutan females have only one infant at a time, and wont have a second one until the infant reaches 7 years
Orangutans are essentially solitary with the only permanent bond being between mother and infant. However, they do live in very loose clusters of related females, which occasionally meet in twos. During periods of higher food-availability they meet more often, to allow bonds to be maintained and infants to play and learn together as well as to share novel behaviours.
The latest population estimate for Bornean orangutans in 2004 was approximately 55000 individuals. At the same time it was noted, that pupulations are decreasing at a rapid rate owing to forest conservation, particulary for oil-palm plantations and other forms of agriculture. As well as illegal logging and hunting of orangutans for food, the pet-trade or for tourist attractions at Zoos in Thailand.
The poachers hunt for the baby orangutans. They kill the mother, kidnap the infant and cage them. The real torture for the infants has just started, as they get beaten and weren't fed for days. This procedure takes place, until the orangutan babys obey the guards and act as they command.
The following footage shows beside other cruelties a bizarre boxing fight between two imprisoned orangutans:
and another one...
This has to stop, no doubt.
Estabilshed in 1991, the Borneo Orangutan Survival (BOS) Foundation is an Indonesian non-profit organization dedicated to the conservation of the Bornean orangutan and its habitat, in cooperation with local communities, the Indonesian Ministry of Forestry and international parnter organizations.
The Borneo Orangutan Survival Foundation has brought to life many programs to save the orangutans from maltreatment and wrong keeping methods.
So far they rescued over 1000 orangutans in Central Kalimantan and currently care for and support over 500 orangutans at Nyaru Menteng. They rely on donations, as this is their only income. If you want to get to know the BOS better, have a look at their website (http://orangutan.or.id/homepage), they provide lots of informations about orangutans and the foundation itself.
I hope, together we are able to collect a small amount, which we can donate and help the orangutans.
This will be my last Vonation post before my 2 months travel trip through Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand and Sri Lanka. We are visiting Borneo as well in the end of august, to see where the orangutans are living and to meet with the BOS Foundation, if everything goes well. I am very exited about it, maybe we will see Abel, the little albino baby, too :)
LETS START SAVING OUR BELOVED PLANET TOGETHER, AS A COMMUNITY!
More Vonation Posts:
learn more about emotions and empathy of animals...
https://steemit.com/animals/@ddot/animals-have-emotions-and-empathy-too-there-are-proofs
