Battle from Extinction : Hospital Workers save Orang-utan

An anaesthetist and an obstetrician at Jersey Hospital, The Channel Islands worked hard to save Dana, a Sumatran Orang-utan living at Durrell Wildlife Conservation Trust this week, when Dana ran into complications during childbirth.

Anxious workers from the Islands Conservation rushed her to the Islands hospital where it was touch and go. Dana lost allot of blood and hospital workers performed through the night to support Dana and her unborn child. Unfortunately Dana gave birth to a still born baby but she was saved thanks to the Hospitals quick thinking. "I was worried I wouldn't be able to handle it but the uterus felt pretty much like a human uterus”, a Hospital worker says. According to the Conservation staff Hospital staff tried to save the baby’s life by giving it mouth to mouth resuscitation and heart massage but unfortunately the baby was already dead. Senior ape keeper Gordon Hunt said: "We are very lucky not to have lost both of them". It has been reported that Dana is now making a speedy recovery. Although she is not quite her usual self, she is eating well and with close support will be fit in no time. Hunt insists that there is no reason why she cannot go on to have many successful pregnancies in the future. The Decline of the Orang-utan The Sumatran orang-utan is the most threatened of the six great ape species – the least threatened of course being the human. Durrell Wildlife Conservation Trust officially named after its founder Gerald Durrell, the naturalist and author preserves these extraordinary creatures with the aim of battling extinction. These creatures live only in the wild on two Islands, Sumatra and Borneo and surveys conducted by the Great Ape Trust say that if swift action isn’t taken to conserve their rainforest habitat and protect them from poachers then they could be extinct a lot sooner that expected. The findings alarmed researchers when they discovered that numbers have plummeted in just the last few years. It found that the amount of Orang-utans on Sumatra Island in Indonesia has fallen by 14% since 2004 to only 6,600 apes. And on Malaysia’s Borneo Island the largest home of the species, numbers have fallen by 10% to only 49,600 apes. Hunting, illegally keeping the animals as pets and most worryingly the expansion of palm oil plantations, the Orang-utans habitat is to blame for the dramatic decrease of the creature’s population. Palm plantations have become a vital part of the economy in Indonesia and Malaysia, as palm oil can be used as a bio fuel which is considered a cleaner and more sustainable alternative to petroleum fuels. Indonesia’s President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono announced a major imitative to save the nation’s Orang-utans last year at a U.N. Climate conference. The plan, expected to be in full swing by 2012 will monitor logging of the animal as well as protect millions of acres of forest as home to the Orang-utan. It will take small steps to protect this creature for its future. Durrell Wildlife Conservation trust is a small yet positive step in the battle. Proud to be a Conservation and not a Zoo the Conservation Trust only inhabits animals that are fighting extinction so we have the chance to learn about them and aid them for their future existence. Among Dana’s neighbours is the Gorilla, another endangered ape home to central Africa, the Black Lion Tamarin which is critically endangered from Brazil and the Lemur from the Island of Madagascar. Visit Durrell Wildlife Conservation Trust at www.durrell.org