Jakarta Globe 9 Dec 10;
Jakarta. Activists have decried the illegal trade in the Sunda slow loris, which they blame for the species’ decline in the wild and for the high rate of premature deaths among captive animals.
Darma Jaya Sukmana, senior manager at International Animal Rescue, which runs a rehabilitation center for the primate in Bogor, said on Thursday that one of its three subspecies, the Javan slow loris, had been listed among the world’s 25 most endangered primates since 2008.
“Very little information about the species has been published, but there’s a consensus that the primate faces a massive threat in Indonesia from loss of habitat and the illegal wildlife trade,” he said during a seminar about conserving the species.
He added that while habitat loss had previously been considered the main culprit for the Sunda slow loris’s decline, new research indicated the illegal wildlife trade was more to blame.
He said the loris was highly prized as a household pet and for use in traditional medicines.
Trade in all three subspecies — the Javan, Malay and Borneo slow lorises — is prohibited under the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species, which Indonesia has acceded to but not ratified.
Despite this, Darma said the animal was still being widely traded across the country.
IAR has since 2008 run the world’s first rehabilitation center for Sunda slow lorises in Bogor, where it now cares for 100 of the animals, more than half of them of the Javan subspecies.
However, Nicolien de Lange, the center’s manager, said a quarter of the animals received there since it opened had died.
She blamed the high fatality rate on the primate’s heightened susceptibility to infections as a result of having their teeth ground down by traders to stop them from biting owners.
“Sixty-four percent of the lorises that come into the IAR rehabilitation center have had their teeth ground down,” she said.
“This results in the roots of the teeth getting exposed and infected, which in turn leads to the animals not eating.”
De Lange said the animals at the IAR center were seized during raids on illegal traders or were donated by their owners.
“The ones from the raids generally still have their teeth intact, but three-quarters of those from private owners don’t,” she said.
With dental operations, however, de Lange said about a tenth of all animals received were able to be released back into the wild.
Antara
