Lisa Siregar

Two gibbons were released into the forest in West Java on Friday. The former pets were taught how to survive in the wild at the Javan Gibbon Rehabilitation Center. (JG Photo)

Gibbons Sing for Survival in West Java

Conditions were perfect in the hills of Nanggrang in Sukabumi, West Java, on Friday for the release of two Javan gibbons, both about 10 years of age: Echi, a female, and Septa, a male.

The air was sweet with the scent of damp grass and soil. The hills, which are part of Gede Pangrango National Park, were covered with tall, healthy trees, from which the gibbons could call to each other.

Echi and Septa had been prepared for their release back into the wild at the Javan Gibbon Rehabilitation Center in Bodogol village, which is situated about 1,500 meters from Nanggrang forest. Jatna Supriatna, the vice president of Conservation International Indonesia, which is involved in running the center, said it was the first time a pair of former pet gibbons had been released back into the wild.

Over their six years at the center, Echi and Septa had been taught the fundamentals of living in the wild. For perhaps the first time they had tasted forest fruits and leaves, and they had also learned to vocalize. Javan gibbons, a threatened species that is endemic to the island of Java, defend their territory and keep their families together with their cries and calls.

“You can hear them sing every morning in the forest. It’s beautiful,” said Anton Ario, deputy program manager at CII.

But pet gibbons cannot learn to sing by imitating other gibbons because they only have contact with humans.

Most of the Javan gibbons come to the rehabilitation center at the age of seven or eight, having been kept as pets since they were babies.

“All that time [when they were pets] they lived around humans and behaved like them. They even ate rice and fried chicken, because that’s what was given to them,” Anton said.

Javan gibbons have long, slender forearms, with hook-like fingers, which they use to propel themselves through forest canopies. But when they arrive at the rehabilitation center, few of them are able to swing around the branches in their cages.

“They can only jump around, because they are used to very small cages, with no trees, and were sometimes even chained up,” Anton said.

At the center, they learn how to move and behave like wild Javan gibbons.

Most of the gibbons at the center were brought there by the forestry police after being confiscated from traders, or by pet owners who could no longer look after them. Others were transferred from animal rescue centers.

Echi and Septa were initially kept in separate cages when they started their rehabilitation in 2003. They were matched together as a breeding pair only about a year ago, according to Anton.

The center has successfully matched 12 pairs of Javan gibbons, which are among the few monogamous primates. In the wild they don’t live in large communities but in families of two or three members.

“If you want to talk about Javan gibbons, don’t talk in individual numbers. Talk in families,” Anton said.

There are currently 27 gibbons at the rehabilitation center, which Anton said represented many more Javan gibbons that had been taken from their natural habitat.

The home territory of a Javan gibbon family in the wild is between five and 20 hectares of forest. “That’s why it is cruel to adopt them as pets,” Anton said.

The rehabilitation area in Bodogol is off limits to visitors. “If you had the flu and sneezed around them, it is very easy for them to get infected,” Anton said.

Gibbons can also be dangerous to humans once they are reintegrated into the wild because they have strong teeth and claws. “In the beginning, they are very friendly because they have been raised as pets,” Anton said.

But at the center the gibbons learn to be wary of humans prior to their release back into the wild so they aren’t easily recaptured. “The wilder they are, the better,” Anton said.

In 2004, the International Union for the Conservation of Nature added the Javan gibbon to its Red List of Threatened Species. The Red List is used as a benchmark for a number of bilateral and UN treaties aimed at wildlife protection.

According to Noviar Andayani, the director of the Bodogol rehabilitation center, the Javan gibbon is in danger because the animals are often taken from the wild and sold as pets.

She said there were only about 3,000 Javan gibbons left in the wild, living in fragments of forest from Banten to Central Java.

Juveniles are in the highest demand as pets and it is common practice for hunters to kill their mothers first.

After helping Javan gibbons adapt to their natural habit and pairing them up, the final step for the center is to return them to the forest.

Anton said he hoped this endangered creature would continue exist in the forests of Java. “We don’t want Javan gibbons to entirely disappear, like, for example, the Javan tigers, which we now only see in pictures and statues,” he said.

Echi and Septa’s release on Friday was witnessed by staff members from the Ministry of Forestry, university researchers and journalists, who were all sweaty and breathless after climbing the hill into the forest. It was difficult to see the gibbon pair because they were hidden among the trees inside their cage. But a few minutes after the cage was opened, one of the gibbons reached out to the branches and swung out of the enclosure. The other gibbon scratched one of the photographers as he took photographs from inside the cage.

“OK, that’s enough, you have to get out,” Anton said loudly from behind. “They are mad, they are not used to humans anymore.”