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IAR rescues lots of lorises in Indonesia!

11th December 2008

Volunteer Melati Grey’s last report from the International Animal Rescue centre described an influx of rescued lorises.

The sudden arrival of an increasing number of lorises at the centre in Ciapus has forced International Animal Rescue to start building a whole new set of enclosures to house them. The aim is to give rescued lorises a decent home until they can be released back into the wild, or given a permanent home at the centre if the vets decide that some animals won’t ever be able to fend for themselves in the wild.

Bleach as he arrived from JakartaAt the end of September we had a modest seven lorises but that number increased rapidly to 13, and we are expecting another 11 to arrive in the next few weeks!

The last furry little primate to arrive was Bleach, given that name because all his fur had been dyed peroxide blonde! He is a Sumatran loris and was being kept as a pet by an Australian girl in Jakarta. She’d been given the loris as a birthday present and was appalled by the fact that someone had given her a live creature as a present. After searching the internet she found International Animal Rescue and called us, asking us to come and and take the poor loris away because she knew we would give it proper care and veterinary treatment.

Dodol's glass homeWe’ve also had lorises from university students in Bandung and Garut (East Jakarta) - known as Kampus and Dodol respectively. These are two Javan lorises that arrived at the centre a couple of weeks ago. Dodol was rescued from Garut where he was being kept in terrible conditions. His owners were keeping him in a glass aquarium in the full sun. Kampus was being kept in a chicken cage which hadn’t been cleaned out for weeks. When they arrived at the centre both lorises were quite weak and thin, but after deworming treatment, antibiotics and appropriate food, the two little guys are thankfully doing really well now.

The centre is expecting another 11 lorises to arrive from a different animal rescue centre in Jakarta, and they should get to Bogor next week. We’ll see what condition they are in, but initial surveying seems to suggest that they are all quite sick.