Bye bye 2005, hello 2006…
The year 2005 was a very special year for the animals and people at the wildlife rescue centre. We had a year of problems and solutions, a year of painful experiences and joy. I have never had such a busy time ever, not even when I was still running my business over half a decade ago, and I never thought our organization would become this big!
The year started with one of the biggest natural disasters still fresh in mind, the Tsunami which devastated the Andaman coast, killing over 5,000 people in Thailand only and destroying a large coastal strip throwing marine animals onto land and pulling people and debris into the seas. I went to the Tsunami area with a group of staff and volunteers while we also helped the Thai Animal Guardians Association financially to send out two teams at the same time. We left in a small convoy to help out with any disaster relief possible, but of course helping the animals was most on our mind. We did realize that helping the animals at first however would be hard to do with so many people still in need of help.
After a few days I was approached by an old man near Kao Lak Beach who said he needed help to look for his wife who went missing since the Tsunami struck. I told him we were going to try to help out, but told him we needed also time for helping out animals in need of help (We were by then feeding companion animals and livestock all over the Phangnga area animals food and fresh water), the man then told me he thought he did see a couple of dolphins in an old tin mine about a mile from the beach! He believed his wife must have been around that area when the wave struck.
We arrived at the lake in the early morning of the 2nd of January, and looked around the lake, within a few minutes finding the first decomposing body of a Western tourist, the first of many more dead bodies to be found there. The whole place smelled of death, I wanted to be elsewhere. The dolphins where hiding, and we did not believe they were actually there. We did hear so many rumours around the place about miracles of this and that amongst all the people helping out and the odd disaster tourist (!) around town. Around 11 o’ clock however we did see the first dolphin come to the surface of the water! It was incredible that this animal survived for already a week in the brackish, stinking water. Over the radio we asked RuamKattanyu (a Thai private rescue organization) for help to catch the dolphins and release them back to sea. This task was way more difficult than expected and took several days, but we did succeed together with Dr. Khongkiart from Phuket, who was just as us quite worried about the prospect of the dolphins ending up as some kind of eco-tourism attraction (this was suggested by some high government official).
The help in especially Phangnga province did continue for another 8 weeks after the dolphin rescue, with several international organizations visiting long after the initial help was needed. What personally for me was unbelievable was the fact that some visitors were posing with stray-dogs and other animals in devastated areas to be used for fundraising while there was actually not much more to be done! I still believe that the vast majority of dogs drowned in the areas, where mostly Muslims lived who do not keep dogs. Once we returned to our center I found a lot of news articles on the Net and in newspapers mentioning large organizations taking credit for the Tsunami relieve, the dolphin rescue and animal welfare issues. During the first 6 weeks I myself did not see one of them around at all, but making pictures…
A bit frustrated and tired after this turbulent start of the year we then had to focus again on the work at the wildlife rescue center. Due to the helping efforts in the South we did lose a lot of work at the center.
Good news early 2005 was that the IPPL (International Primate Protection League) was very generous, and funded a new pre-release island for a group of sub-adult gibbons! The building of the 3,000sqm island took a long time due to the drought we faced from the beginning of the year till September! We can now however say that the waiting was horrible, but worth it. The lake is completely filled up again, and the island is one of the best we have for the gibbons. Thank you Shirley, Diane and of course all supporters of IPPL!
Amy Corrigan, who had been helping me to manage the center for over 3 years left to study her master’s degree in Edinburgh in animal welfare, creating a bit of a problem for me as I could not find a good new person for the job. Everybody wants to work with the animals, but real dedicated people are not found easily. Amy, you are still being missed by the animals at the center!
Fortunately we did receive a continuous large amount of volunteers at the center in the months to come, enabling us to improve the living conditions of the animals at the center. We did build this year a lot of LARGER enclosures for the animals that were rescued and improved our clinic and quarantine center! We did get full-time veterinarian and vet-techs present and upgraded the standard operating procedures for incoming rescued wildlife. A second hand mini-bus was purchased for rescue missions and we were called upon more and more often to assist wildlife in need of help by both private citizen as well as government officials. Ironically I was arrested for helping/rescuing wildlife within the month of March by a corrupt official who demanded kick-offs and told me to stop helping wildlife ( He had been harassing us for over a year by now). He got me into jail, quite an accomplishment, but Police General Swake Pinsinchai, commander of the Forestry Police swiftly bailed me out with his own money, telling the BBC and Australian TV SBS as well as the local press that he believed the problem was more or less “politically motivated”, we went into the third year of campaigning for the repatriation of orang-utans from zoos in Bangkok and Lopburi back to Borneo, Indonesia, a scandal involving more than just the owners and management of the zoos! Now at the end of 2005 these animals are still in Thailand, some of them even returned to the (Lopburi) zoo.
We did rescue the biggest amount of animals ever in one year in 2005, With over 34 missions involving over 150 animals we can now say that we are Thailand’s biggest (hands on) wildlife rescue NGO. The kind of animals rescued were bears, primates, snakes, monitors, hog badgers, pangolins, small cats, mouse deer and binturong. Some 35 gibbons were taken in in 2005, mostly ex-pets and the biggest gibbon rescue involved 10 at one time from a small “eco-resort” that went bankrupt.
A large amount of macaques were rescued again as well, mostly unwanted pets, but also a large number of wild macaques injured by traffic and even half a dozen of animals that were injured by people, some of the most horrible injuries I have ever seen! The macaque that had one leg and an arm chopped off must have been the worst, not the injury in particular but how this was done! How can people do this?
We did receive more bears in 2005 and by the end of the year we almost have completed a very large new enclosure that can house up to 16 bears. We thought it would be nice especially for “Bouncer” the three legged bear to have a very large (5000sqm) enclosure as he will definitely spend the rest of his life at the center.
We also lost a few animals at the center over the last year; some of them lost their life just after they were brought in, for them the rescue came too late. Some animals left us after being with us for a longer time. Flip, the wild pig, died in her sleep in the first quarter of 2005, and although many times subject of discussion whether she should live or not, I still believe she was a happy pig till the last day. We lost Lilly and Luna, both langurs whose malnutrition problems from a younger age finally got to them, and poor Jack, the juvenile gibbon. Jack got a cold probably from visitors and died of pneumonia. The whole group of gibbons got sick at first and we decided to move them to the closed area where people couldn’t get close to them, they will stay there for now. Jack’s passing away was devastating to all of us.
Besides all the news about animals and people at the center we were very lucky in 2005 to receive a very big coverage in the media. The center has been several times on Animal Planet and Discovery Channel. We were seen on CNN international on three different occasions in 2006, and on Thai TV we were very often able to talk about our mission of rescuing and protecting wildlife! Thank you Channel3, 5, 9, ITV and UBC for giving us this opportunity. Besides the TV-channels we do owe a big thank you to Willy and Cathaleeya McIntosh, Thailand’s most famous TV-stars, they have helped the animals and the center as no-one ever before did in Thailand.
I think we can say that over all we had a pretty good (although turbulent) year at the rescue center with lots of changes, lots of work and lots of plans for the future.
We hope to be able to continue our work in 2006 even better;
Help has been promised by Care for the Wild International on our project of having the first real mobile wildlife clinic in Thailand! The car has been purchased already and is being modified. Care for the wild will sponsor all necessary medical appliances inside the car so operations and first aid can be given in the field 24/7!
Close cooperation between Indian and Indonesian NGO’s and our organization monitoring the illegal wildlife trade will definitely benefit all of us in the new year, and an intensive study on the cross border trade in protected species ins under way.
The release of a young group of gibbons is scheduled to take place later within the second quarter of 2006, a thrilling project.
A study on behaviour in captivity of Sun bears and Asiatic black bears will be started by March 2006. This will surely be an interesting pilot project, funding for this project is not in yet, but we are working on it.
As you can see we have lots to do for the New Year, and will need lots of people to help out again. I wish for now to thank all volunteers, staff, visitors and supporters of the WFFT for all the help in the past year. In particular I wish to thank again Shirley McGreal, Willie Smits, Willem Osterloh and General Swake Pinsinchai for financial and or moral support. I Wish also to thank Dr. Cheryl McPherson, Dr. Tharm Sook Keng and She Voon Hui from Singapore for the fantastic medical support!
Let’s try to make 2006 an even better year for the animals!
Edwin Wiek
Founder and Director
Tel +66-9-0600906