SVAA
HURO PROGRAM
Silsotchigre Wildlife Rescue Center.
Development of the Program’s activities
Introduction.
Born two years back, the Program has been proped up several times on paper, thought on the basis of our elders’s work and this, with the support from scientists, Directors of Zoological Parks and veterinary doctors specialized in wildlife in the unique aim to find an answer to these questions: What to do to compensate for the decline of the wild populations of Western Hoolock Gibbon? What to do to slow down the traffic and to reinforce the wild populations? But more generally, What to do concretely in order to preserve their habitat and the animal and vegetal species that constitute it and maintain it as it is? If on the paper we thought to have found the answers, what is the situation now on place? It is to this question that we will try to find an answer, this, in plunging ourselves in the depth of what constitutes the body of a conservation program.
I. The wildlife rescue center or the heart of an efficient Conservation Program
1. Operation of seizure, control of the wildlife traffic and welcome to the center
In order to begin this chapter I will put before a problematic: The international laws as the Convention of Washington of the CITES and the national laws as the Indian Wildlife Act of 1972 protect according to a system of annexes the endangered species on the paper. The question is How to make applied these laws? But replace ourselves for a while inside the context, the one of our Program for example, in spite of the fact that it can be apply without any difficulty to several others. We work in northeast India on the Bangladesh border, in a location, I repeated it often, but I will never repeat it enough, that the Indians themselves are agreed to qualifiate as “remote area, economically and technologically backward”. And the fact that this region is one of the richest of the world regarding culture, language, fauna, flora does not change anything... We are here outside of the world and do not beneficiate or a few from its interest... How many people here died from malaria without taking part of some statistics from a government that ignores all about their birth? In this context how to hope that the Convention of Washington can be applied here? How to pretend, while the Human itself represents just a few, that the local administrators can have some interest for the conservation of Primates? So do not be presumptious nothing is done there and nothing will be done from the part of the authorities for Conservation... Everyone, in a system of corruption and a complex social position being too much preoccupate by his immediate own profit. It seems that the future of the biodiversity is based on the shoulders of the NGOs. So saying that, How concretely a NGO can hope to influence efficiently and this on the long term, in matters of conservation of the species and their habitat? And what is the answer to our problematic? If the laws do only representation... I could during my career have the knowledge of many projects for the conservation and development on long term, and curiously it appears that many of them are turned over that I can named as passive conservation and on the short term, contenting themselves to call for emergency, to give some catastrophic statistics and to collect some data. The studies are necesarry for sure and I could content myself easily with the fact that is sufficient but the state of the situation shows that is not enough. An impressive number of studies including studies of viability have been realized regarding the Western Hoolock Gibbon, however, we are data deficient on the populations of the National Parks and it continues to be the prey of a traffic that nobody seemed to want to resolve. Because it is there that our answer is. Rather to contente ourselves to make some studies that will be for sure crowned by a diploma but that will not resolve the problem itself alone, the idea was to settle a Program and thus to abandon a scepticism of rigour regarding the wild populations. Settle a Program, which epicentre would be a wildlife rescue center allowing us to, by one hand, seize the captive individuals and so to apply the Conventions and the laws and, on the other hand, to attempt via a rehabiliation process, a reinforcement of the wild stock. Then, around this center must be weaved a web including some scientific studies (taxonomy, behavior and viability), a support to the protection of the Parks, to the local population, to education and, notably to sensitization. The rarity and the critic that must face this sort of Programs are explained by two reasons. First, the difficulty of the work has dissuaded more than one person... Because, for that this type of enterprise works you have to be on place, and be on place for the long term between the malaria mosquitoes, the local administrators and the rain of moonson this can be quickly less funny...The critics come more from the fact that several programs are more nurseries than rescue centers... The extreme rigour that needs the fact to pretend to release some individuals has been infortunately oftenly forgotten. I would like now to attempt to give a vision that is ours here. Our center is now composed of fourteen individuals this including five Western Hoolock Gibbons that we welcomed here in a unique aim: the one that they can one day find again the jungle. Our position here at the center is the following: We are between two chairs, between science and ethic. I explain myself. If we work for the conservation and the reinforcement of the wild populations with rigour, we possess equally a sensibility to the contact with our pensionnaries that many can qualifiate as anthropomorphism. If I understand that several expressions employed could be interpreted in this view, I conceive also the things in an other way. If we were not animated by this cautious sensibility what could be our motor? But this is also this cautious sensibility itself that allows ourselves to realize with rigour our actions towards the aim that we fixed. To put it in a nutshell someone that pretends to love the chimpanzees, the Bonobos...and who keep them for life in an incarcerating universe have lost something on the way or does not have a sincere speech. But come back to the center. Every rescues have been realized after seizure at the house of the owner always with the authorizations but sometimes without the support on place from the Department of Forests. Our functioning in matters of seizure is the following : Because the Department of Forests does not care about the traffic, we have some informants who give us the informations. This is only on the basis of this watch that we can intervene. Then, follows the demand of the authorizations of rescue, the preparation of the rescue and the rescue itself, obliging us sometimes to some true expeditions... We try to be the most efficient as possible for the first cares, because it is often during the first two days that are found the major part of the mortal cases. The protocol post rescue is the following: Before we must evaluate the health state of the new arrival with it we can after fix a treatment and the necessary portions. Systematically we give an antibiotic with a large spectrum (Amoxicillin) and a wormer (Ivermectin), precaution that reduces efficiently the mortality. Then, the practice is the evaluation of the progress notably regarding the health state of the psychic state. We are also attentive to their needs and to the necessary nutritionnal portion. The elaboration of the meals is realized according to some factors. First, this is according to the species but also the age, the malnutrition degree, deshydratation and hypoglycemia that we fix the necessary quantities. In case of severe malnutrition and in particular for the youngest we use the formula F 100 of the OMS gave frequently with few quantity, providing a daily portion of 100 calories per kilo needed for a good rehabilitation. The newborns are nourrished on demand (every 3 / 4 hours) according to meals divided into milk solution (Lactogen 1 or 2nd age), fruits and leaves. Regarding the Hoolock juveniles or adults we are functioning on the basis of three fixed meals with fixed hours (8h, 12h, 16h) coming from the principle that the Hoolock Gibbon in his natural habitat spends around 60% of his time to feed. In this way, we reduce significatively the stress that can provokes the wait of food. We add that we give regularly a proteinic portion (egg or meat) one time per week. Regarding water, we cannot give the one from the tap, we give to our pensionnaries water in bottles only. The fruits are washed with boiled water. Each individual at the center beneficiate from a daily follow up registered of an individual form (health, food, behavior, treatment, observation) that constitutes after an historic completed by a medical form realized since his arrival.
2. Management of the Zoonosis, follow up of the individuals and the staff in contact
We told regurlarly it: the management of the zoonosis is placed without a doubt at the center of the success of a conservation program planifying a reinforcement of the wild stock. But how to realize it concretely on place, here far from the medical institutions correctly equiped? Our gestion must be based on three major axis: The follow up of the individuals, the one of the staff and the maintainance of a safe environment. The follow up of the individuals in matter of zoonosis for the Gibbon is the following: Test Herpes Hominis 1 and 2, hepatitis tests A, B and C, tuberculosis test, control of the protozoans and internal parasites. If the tuberculosis and hepatitis tests are available here in Tura this is at the level of the the Herpes tests that we meet some troubles. In effect, the samples of blood must make a trip of several thousands kilometers until Mumbai, in order to be tested that oblige us to wait for not less than one month and is very costly (around 100 euros by test). Any Gibbon is put in contact with his congeneric or released before to have realized several tests. Regarding the sanitary follow up of the staff in contact we follow almost the same process of tests: TB, hepatitis and HIV and we have to wait for the same time and same cost. We ask also to our staff a strict hygiene of the body. Regarding the welcome structures, the places of stock and preparation of food, the clinic, are daily desinfected and beneficiate from a control of the vermin (rats, insects...). The trashes are incinerated.
3. Rehabilitation, releasing and follow up post releasing
In matters of rehabilitation the Program welcomes now one male Gibbon adult in process, Espoir. He is still wild because he was captured at the adult age by the villagers with a catapult. Arrived at the center in a critical state health he presented several infected injuries on his face, he was shifted in the rehabilitation aviary after a convalescence of more than two weeks at the care center. At present, Espoir show us that he is totally indifferent at our contact and show more interest for the call of the wild individuals. The feeding is done as following: the major part of the food is put in containers after hung in different places on the trees inside the aviary . A second source of food is put on the ground, however since two months he never went on the ground. Thus, in a behavioral point of view, he is ready to be released. But until today by the difficulty that represents this action on an adult male Gibbon and by the lack of specialized staff, he is not tested yet. So we want to test him as soon as possible in reason of the delay for the results. Then, around the end of the moonson, in September, we want to attempt this experience: Like he is still wild but alone, the aim would be to find inside Nokrek National Park the territory of a floating female (without male), to settle a cage on this territory and to shift Espoir in it, then to study the relations if there is contact. If case of good relations we can imagine a releasing with an important follow up. However, we are well aware that this operation remains uncertain due to the complex relations between Gibbons. Moreover, it will be feasible only when we will begin the project of reinforcement of the protection of Nokrek National Park.
II Project of reinforcement of the protection for Nokrek National Park
If we really want to have an impact on the survival of the wild populations of Hoolock Gibbon and make a reinforcement of the wild stock we have to be able to reduce significatively the threats on the species in the wild in order to, ideally, no more meet captive or killed individuals. But further our attention has to be focussed on the habitat. In order to act on these aims in an efficient way, that are the National Parks protected on the paper which we can take as targets. I would like, before to enter in details on the manner, to paint the situation here about the protection of the forests. The Garos, (and in general the major part of the northeastern tribes of India) and this since ancestral times, practice the “jhum” or shifting culture. Everybody knows well the ravages and the precarity that represents this practice. However, more than this, an intensive culture of bettlenuts and cashew nuts added to an activity of extraction of coal appeared and instead of being a substitution to the ones before it completed it, generating daily environmental degradations always more obvious. It is interesting about this subject to tell a conversation I had with the Conservator of Forests of the Garo Hills. This last complained about the troubles that cause the new hords of elephants in several villages. When I told him that when the elephants came into the village it was precisely because the forest was reduced , he told me: “But what to do? People can do what they want with the forests!!!”... This gives us a pictured vision but clear of the situation. But come back to the way of making a reinforcement of the protection of the National Parks. Regarding our Program, and this since the first locations, our choice regarding reinforcement and releasing was fixed on the Nokrek National Park which was the subject of a demand to the UNESCO to join the Program of Man and Biosphere (MAB), demand at present without any suite. This decision was made with the idea of the chances of success of a project of protection of this area in view of the releasing. Now, with the new elements that we have, it is obviously the best area for releasing. However we have to put the basis as soon as possible and to begin this project before it is too late, because even uneven the area remains exposed to poaching and illegal deforestation. Coming from the point that this park has, in theory but not in practice, an efficient physical protection, the idea is to create a squad under the Program which will have the mission to watch the interior of the National Park not only the entry as it is the case now. Its initial composition will be three or four men that can be sufficient, at the beginning, regarding the size of the area to watch (48 km2) and coming from the point that they will have to make real patrol inside the Park and will be in charge of the protection of the releasing areas. However, if it is needed, I cannot believe that the survival of the wild populations can be based only on a coercitive method. That is why our attention must be also turned over an another front: the sensitization.
III Opening of a school for the safeguard of the local biodiversity and sensitization.
The children.They are the future, the ones who will have to make an important choice with consequences : Continue on the way of the elders, destruct and lose or change the course of the things, preserve and win. Nevertheless, in order to be able to make the right choice they must have the necessary elements for thinking and be aware about what they will win, what they will lose, ignorance being at the center of all troubles. That is why since the beginning of the activities of the Program on place our attention was interested in the little private school of Silsotchigre village, barely managed by the parents of the students and the Nokma (chief of the village). The idea regarding this school is to take it under the Program in order to make it free and the first school including an eductaion to the safeguard of biodiversity inside the school program. The school welcomes at present 52 students divided into six classes (from nursery to class 4). Regarding the project of taking the school under the Program all is planned now including a memorandum with the representants of the village however, this last is pending waiting for the necessary funds to realize it. Finally, other ponctual projects of sensitization are planned in the future and will have as target the villages on the border of the Nokrek National Park.
Conclusion
Two years after its birth, the Program made his way. From authorizations to the first rescues we became the first wildlife rescue center for the Western Hoolock Gibbon in the world. Our pensionnaries are the ambassadors of the wild populations which, until today were on the way of extinction in silence but which now seem to found a voice that go through their hills.
SVAA President and Director of the Huro Program.