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Letters: Send the orangutans home
Since confiscating 11 orangutans from a private zoo on Feb
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ince confiscating 11 orangutans from a private zoo on Feb. 5, the National Park authorities have remained suspiciously tight-lipped. Will anyone be prosecuted? Will the orangutans be repatriated to Indonesia?
Readers may consider this to be remarkably reminiscent of behavior the authorities adopted in 2006, when they did all they could to block the return of up to 100 illegally-held orangutans back to Indonesia.
All attempts to find out the long overdue results of DNA tests of these 11 orangutans have met with silence. We are left to wonder why no one will be transparent with such information. If, as is very likely, these orangutans were all illegally imported into Thailand, the authorities have a legal obligation to return them to their original country without delay.
Even more troubling for many is the apparent lack of enthusiasm from Wildlife Friends Foundation Thailand (WFFT) who are currently looking after the orangutans, to return them back home to Indonesia. WFFT have made it clear they want to keep them.
It is difficult to understand why a wildlife rescue centre, apparently opposed to trade in wildlife, is seemingly reluctant to send these creatures, caught in the wild, returned to the forests of Indonesia - rather be kept caged in Thailand.
By making no attempts to return these orangutans to Indonesia, WFFT is knowingly, albeit with approval of the Thai authorities, holding onto illegally traded, highly endangered and internationally protected orangutans - all of which puts WFFT in the position of being part of the problem with these orangutans, rather than part of the solution.
For every orangutan that is traded illegally, another four have been killed during capture or have died in transit; which means, those in Thailand responsible for this trade have caused the deaths of 44 orangutans. Those who now refuse to do the right thing and return these orangutans to Indonesia, without further delay, may well be seen to be condoning this cruel and illegal trade.
Five months have passed and it's time we had some answers.
The alternative is another full-blown international campaign naming and shaming Thailand for its part, once again, in the killing of and illegal trade in orangutans. This will only further damage an already fragile tourism industry, but who wants to visit a country involved in the illegal trade of orangutans, amongst many other species?
Sean Whyte
England
