A dramatic rescue story, which could easily have been a tragedy!
You may be aware just how devastating the Indonesian wildfire situation has become. Rainforests in Sumatra and Borneo are burning at a more intense rate than ever before, leaving one million Indonesians struggling to breathe and survive in the smoke and the wake of the fires. Sadly countless wild animals are in trouble as well.
Thankfully, The International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW) has stepped in to give communities and wildlife the support they so desperately need! Thanks to a generous grant by IFAW, DAD’s local Indonesian partner Indonesian Species Conservation Program (ISCP) has been able to increase capacity to help stem the wildfires and save countless more animals now in need of rescue.
Our collaboration with ISCP has recently expanded to Aceh which lies at the edge of the Sumatran rainforest, increasing the range of our partnership’s protection to over 240 kilometers! Here we share the first dramatic rescue and rehabilitation story from Aceh, an injured, one-eyed slow loris.
His friend in the cage will also be rehabilitated and released, after some current wildlife conflicts are resolved near this wildlife authority facility.
In addition to our wildlife rescue and rehabilitation effort, when our collaborative ISCP network discovers a new fire about to be set, they intervene, and offer local farmers alternatives to setting palm oil fires, giving them sustainable options. These initiatives are already underway in the Leuser Ecosystem village of Batu Rongring, where we have been working for the past year. We are happy to report have shown great success, thus, the local farmers have decided not to continue with palm oil farming after learning from our sustainability education program.
As for our one-eyed slow loris friend, the ISCP team, in cooperation with the Wildlife Authority rehabilitated him; transferring him to a transport container to be released back into the Leuser Ecosystem UNESCO Site rainforest.
And thanks to this amazing team, our one-eyed friend is now back in the rainforest living his best slow loris life, while he could very easily have been a victim of a growing forest fire in the region instead.
All of us cannot thank IFAW enough for the opportunity to give these communities, animals, and ecosystem a chance in the face of growing wildfire disasters!
-Tod and Piggy, Presidents, Darwin Animal Doctors