EDWIN WIEK: “Hi Chico”.

 

SAMANTHA HAWLEY: “I’m a bit wary of you Chico I must say”.

 

They might look happy but these rare animals have been stolen, drugged and sent far from home.

 

EDWIN WIEK: “This boy was born somewhere high in the trees, given birth the mother and the mother must have been shot just because some rich person somewhere in this world believes that having an orangutan as a pet is okay”.

 

SAMANTHA HAWLEY:  Tonight, inside a multibillion dollar global business. We meet the smugglers.

 

[talking to whistle-blower] “That’s like killing a human being”.

 

And the campaigners putting their lives on the line.

 

EDWIN WIEK: “It’s a well-oiled, very well organised criminal gang – it’s mafia”.

 

SAMANTHA HAWLEY: And we find out how some of the great apes are finally coming home.

 

[walking through forest] “After a life time in captivity, they’re just about to release this orangutan, in this beautiful, lush forest, exactly where it should be”.

 

PROGRAM INTRODUCTION – THE BABY TRADE

 

SAMANTHA HAWLEY: We’re about three hours south of Bangkok on our way to film some babies.  They’re not just any old babies, these are orangutans who were stolen from a forest in Indonesia and discovered in the back seat of a Bangkok taxi.  Animal rights campaigner, Edwin Wiek, is taking us to meet them.

 

“Oh yeah here they are”.

 

EDWIN WIEK: [babies walking holding each other] “Yeah here they are.  Yeah so these are the ones that came from the taxi.  It’s actually quite sad to see, they’re nearly a couple of months now.  At least they have each other”.

 

SAMANTHA HAWLEY: This is Nomita and Shizuka just over a year ago, filmed in the back of a taxi by an anti-trafficking group.  The group used Facebook to pose as a buyer, paying a deposit of 3,000 US dollars.  Thai police held the driver for a few hours then let him go without charges.  As for the real criminals behind the sale of these three-month-old orangutans, we’ll come to them a bit later.

 

“This is the surrogate mother?”

 

EDWIN WIEK: “Yes this is the mama”.

 

SAMANTHA HAWLEY: A year on, the rescued babies have a new temporary home here at a government sanctuary.  They’re just two of many smuggled orangutans that end up in Thailand every few months, far from their jungle home in Indonesia.

 

EDWIN WIEK: “So Am takes care of the four orangutans here.  She just basically feeds them every day.  They still drink milk.  They’ll come and smell you now”.

 

SAMANTHA HAWLEY: “Hello baby”.

 

EDWIN WIEK: “They look healthy”.

 

SAMANTHA HAWLEY: “Yeah they look okay”.

 

These four babies were all ripped from their mothers.

 

“What’s the prospect of these guys going back to the jungles of Sumatra?”

 

EDWIN WIEK: “Because they’re young, there’s a much better chance of them being repatriated back to Indonesia and going actually really to the wild, especially because they’re Sumatran.  So there’s a good chance there’s the political will there.  They have a bond now”.

 

SAMANTHA HAWLEY: The longer animals are out of the wild, the harder it is to send them back.  Harry has been here for three years. 

 

EDWIN WIEK: “Harry!  Harry, you be nice please.  Harry was found in a public bus, together with a Bornean langur and a Bornean gibbon, the three of them.  So, they were put on a bus in a box to be sent to Bangkok.  They were caught in Hua Hin.  So that’s about half an hour from our centre”.

 

SAMANTHA HAWLEY: Orangutan trafficking is a lucrative business, worth perhaps tens of millions of dollars per year by some estimates.  Babies are stolen from the jungles of Indonesia and sold as pets and for zoos for entertainment. 

 

Orangutans are especially valued because they can be dressed up and taught to do tricks.  This was filmed recently at a zoo just outside Jakarta.  The most lucrative destination is the Middle East, where the trafficked animals can fetch tens or even hundreds of thousands of dollars.

 

Originally from the Netherlands, Edwin Wiek is a pioneer in wildlife protection in Thailand, and a bit of a local legend.  18 years ago, he survived a serious car accident.  Ever since, he’s devoted his life to rescuing and caring for animals.  He runs projects throughout Asia, including this refuge in Southern Thailand. His work often brings him into conflict with authorities.

 

EDWIN WIEK: [Wildlife Friends Foundation] “I’ve been in gaol several times because you’re pissing off the wrong people.  The illegal wildlife trade is very lucrative, a lot of people make lots of money including some politicians or government officials in some cases.  I’ve been pulled out of my car once at night by a couple of people pretending to be police who probably weren’t. They could have killed me if they wanted, but they didn’t. Basically, it’s shocking”.

 

[calling out] “Where you going Mimi?  Where you going?  Well done, well done Mim!”

 

[walking through sanctuary] “You see this is not what I would suggest as a normal habitat for an orangutan”.

 

SAMANTHA HAWLEY: “No”.

 

EDWIN WIEK: “But it’s a great area to teach them how to live in the trees again”.

 

SAMANTHA HAWLEY: Edwin takes me to meet Maggie and Chico, two orangutans who are still damaged from their former lives as pets. 

 

EDWIN WIEK: “There they are.  There they are over there”.

 

SAMANTHA HAWLEY: “Oh there they are.  Yeah, here we go”.

 

EDWIN WIEK: “Hi Chico”.

 

SAMANTHA HAWLEY: [gives Samantha a hug] “I’m a bit wary of you Chico I must say! Very wary of Chico.  I’m sorry.  As long as you don’t bite me, I’ll be fine”.

 

EDWIN WIEK: “He’s a good charmer!  Chico…”.

 

SAMANTHA HAWLEY: “Thanks Chico”.

 

EDWIN WIEK: “Chico she doesn’t like red heads.  She likes blond men”.

 

SAMANTHA HAWLEY: Chico is five years old and was taken from the rainforests of Borneo when he was a baby.  He used to belong to a senior Thai police officer.

 

EDWIN WIEK: “Chico what are you doing to do? What are you going to do with that umbrella?”

 

SAMANTHA HAWLEY: He was dumped because he was too difficult to handle. 

 

EDWIN WIEK: [calling up into the trees] “Maggie, where are you? Oh, there she is, there she is.  You can see her hanging up there, you see?”

 

SAMANTHA HAWLEY: Maggie is from Sumatra. She was smuggled into Thailand as a baby and was somebody’s pet.

 

EDWIN WIEK: “Maggie come on, come on.  Maggie!  Maggie!  So, she looks for a high place and then she just, every day she builds a nest.  Unfortunately, we can’t let her sleep here because the local people would probably kill her at night if they go hunting in the area and they see something in the tree, they wouldn’t know what it is and they’ll just shoot it first and then check it so… you see?” [Maggie swings to the next branch]

 

SAMANTHA HAWLEY: “Oh you did it!”

 

EDWIN WIEK: “She’s so clever.  Clever girl!”

 

SAMANTHA HAWLEY:  But while Maggie displays all the right signs of rehabilitation, Chico shows none.  He doesn’t even know how to climb a tree.

 

EDWIN WIEK: “If you realise that this boy was born in the jungle of Borneo, somewhere high in the trees, given birth the mother and the mother must have been shot”.

 

SAMANTHA HAWLEY: “Yes of course”.

 

EDWIN WIEK: “Just because some rich person somewhere in this world believes that having an orangutan as a pet is okay.  You can see in one view here the boy being completely wasted by humans against a girl who has found her kind of freedom again and is living a much more natural kind of life”.

 

SAMANTHA HAWLEY: Edwin says many of the rescued animals he returns to Indonesia end up back in zoos. 

 

“So, they’re just caged again?”

 

EDWIN WIEK: “Just caged again.  So, I find it utterly disgusting that the Indonesian Government is not keeping its promise that the animals that were confiscated in Thailand and repatriated back to Indonesia, were put into proper rescue facilities to be at least rehabilitated to some kind of social life with other orangutans in the semi-wild but even better, back to the wild”.

 

SAMANTHA HAWLEY: We’re about to find out just how bad it can get.  We’ve come to the Indonesian capital, Jakarta, to investigate Edwin’s claims and after repeated requests, we’ve finally managed to get inside a government run animal rescue centre, to see a male orangutan, Jono, who’s been caged here for five years after being confiscated from a local group that kept him as a pet.  We hear him before we see him.

 

Jono was rescued in April 2012.  He’s been in this cage ever since. 

 

[standing outside of Jono’s cage] “Ah this has just been so incredibly confronting to see the animal caged like this, this huge Orangutan caged in this cage behind me for five full years.  He’s obviously distressed. It’s been… there’s just no words.  There’s no words”.  

 

We’re told Jono will finally be taken to an orangutan sanctuary some time this year but he’ll still need to be caged.  At 15 years old, he’s huge and now dangerous.  Orangutans can live for up to 60 years in the wild, but for him, rehabilitation is no longer an option. 

 

Around the corner is baby Otan, confiscated from a house in South Jakarta, he’s been caged since April last year. 

 

Owning a pet primate is a big status symbol here, even though it’s illegal.  Chances are that like most trafficked orangutan babies, Otan was grabbed after traffickers killed his mother.  We’ve found an insider who can tell us exactly how it all works.

 

[at the airport] “So we’re on the way to Medan in North Sumatra where a former wildlife smuggler has agreed to talk to us.  He was involved in smuggling orangutans.  We want to quiz him about what motivated him, how much he was paid and what sort of sinister underworld he was actually involved in”.

 

Driven by guilt, he’s now an informant for Scorpion, an anti-wildlife trafficking unit based in Indonesia.  We must protect his identity or he could be killed.

 

“Tell me how did you first become involved in the smuggling of wildlife?”

 

WHISTLE-BLOWER: [subtitle] “The main factor was of course the amount of money”.

 

SAMANTHA HAWLEY: He would pay a local tribesman the equivalent of fifty Australian dollars for a baby and on sell it to a middle man for around two and a half thousand dollars.  He was selling around three orangutans a week. 

 

“So, I want you, if you could, describe to me in detail how the hunter gets the orangutan off the mother”.

 

WHISTLE-BLOWER: [subtitle] “Every time she hopped on a tree we’d cut that tree down. We’d cut down trees until she was cornered.  Next we’d catch the mother in a net and either hit her or shoot her.  Once she was dying we’d take the baby”.

 

SAMANTHA HAWLEY: His orangutan smuggling career ended after one last traumatic kill.

 

WHISTLE-BLOWER: “Her eyes were closed, and just like a human, she pumped her breast to get milk for her baby… after 8 or 9 pumps there was some milk, she passed out and died. After that I stopped trading orangutans”. 

 

SAMANTHA HAWLEY: “And according to you and your view of orangutans that’s like killing a human being”.

 

WHISTLE-BLOWER: [subtitle] [nods] “Yes, then I felt… how would it be if it happened to me, being separated from my child?” [upset]

 

SAMANTHA HAWLEY: The smugglers are constantly devising new ways to get the animals out of the country.  Our ex-smuggler and other sources tell us they rely partly on corrupt officials at airports.

 

WHISTLE-BLOWER: [subtitle] “Before we shipped them we’d give the baby orangutans milk.  Sometimes we’d mix the milk with baby formula to fill them up. Then we’d put them in nappies and give them pillows to hug. It’d be hard for us to take the pillows away from them because they think they’re hugging their mothers”.

 

SAMANTHA HAWLEY: It’s not just orangutans that are in demand.  This baby gibbon was discovered a few months ago in the Jakarta home of a wealthy Indonesian who wanted it as a pet.

 

EDWIN WIEK: “We’ve seen it all – pilots, cabin attendants being used to smuggle stuff because they can eventually put whatever they want on the plane anyway.  We’ve seen diplomats using their diplomat suitcases to smuggle wildlife or parts of wildlife.  The Chinese are notorious for it.  They do it all the time from Africa.  It’s al possible.  It’s a well-oiled, very well organised criminal gang.  It’s mafia behind it”.

 

SAMANTHA HAWLEY: “That means they go from Indonesia, they’re in Malaysia…”.

 

EDWIN WIEK: “They’re everywhere”.

 

SAMANTHA HAWLEY: “… they’re in Thailand”.

 

EDWIN WIEK: “They’re everywhere”.

 

SAMANTHA HAWLEY: Some smuggled orangutans do get a second chance.  We’ve come to East Kalimantan on the island of Borneo to see how the rescued animals are reintroduced into the wild.  Borneo is one of the most heavily forested areas left in Indonesia, but with only 50,000 wild orangutans left, they’re critically endangered. 

 

It’s even worse in Sumatra, where it’s believed there are only six and a half thousand.  They’re the only two places in the world where wild orangutans live and they’re in danger of dying out due to habitat destruction and the illegal pet trade.

 

“Hi Hardi”.

 

HARDI BAKTIANTORO: “Hi, hi”.

 

SAMANTHA HAWLEY: “Thanks for having us.  It’s a long way to get here”.

 

HARDI BAKTIANTORO: “Welcome to our centre”.

 

SAMANTHA HAWLEY: Hardi Baktiantoro runs the Centre for Orangutan Protection or COP. 

 

EDWIN WIEK: “I always like to call Hardi the orangutan commando.  He is one of the real people fighting on the frontline against the abuse, the poaching, the trade of orangutans and other wildlife, but especially orangutans in Indonesia.  And at the same time, he’s got to be politically correct and keep in good shape with the authorities in Indonesia because if he wouldn’t, he couldn’t continue his work”. 

 

SAMANTHA HAWLEY: [Popi hugging carer] “Popi seems to really like her a lot”.

 

Popi was found wandering near a local farm.  Her mother was almost certainly killed by hunters.  She’ll need the help of her human surrogate, Weti, for at least three years.  Just like a human baby, orangutans need feeding every couple of hours, right through the night.  When they’re kept as pets, they rarely get the care they need.

 

HARDI BAKTIANTORO: [subtitle] “They’re mistreated, for example, they’re given fried noodles or they’re given rice, mistreatment like that.  They need cuddling to feel safe but instead they’re kept in a box or a bag”.

 

SAMANTHA HAWLEY: Popi is on her way to forest school.  These are her classmates.  Here they’ll very simply learn to be orangutans, to find their own food in the jungle, to climb, to be wild.  Popi is the least brave in the class, but they’ll all have time to learn.  They’ll remain here for at least another five years before being released into the wild. 

 

HARDI BAKTIANTORO: [subtitle] “They were scared of climbing trees.  They didn’t know how.  So if we put them on even a small tree they’d be scared and cry. So we had to climb the tree too.  When they got better at it they’d climb higher.  If they got stuck we’d climb up and get them”.

 

SAMANTHA HAWLEY: [baby approaching Samantha] “Hello.  Hello. It’s my hair!  Is it the colour?  Oh he wants the hair band I think”. 

 

Once they’ve matured and have reached a stage of semi-wild, it’ll be time for the next step, a pre-release island and no cages for a while.  We’re heading there now, to deliver the adult orangutans their breakfast. The alpha male Hercules, was rescued from a decrepit university zoo in 2015.  Soon he’ll be released back into the wild.

 

[arriving at beach] “They’ve waited a bit long.  They were getting really angry, weren’t they?  So, there’s corn and banana”. 

 

[orangutan in a cage] This is Oki.  He’s about to be set free after spending most of his 15 years in some form of captivity.  We’re lucky enough to be able to film with Hardi and his team as it happens. 

 

HARDI BAKTIANTORO: [subtitle] “Now he’s finally able to return to the wild.  It’s an extraordinary experience for him”.

 

SAMANTHA HAWLEY: First he has to be sedated.  Then they take samples of his fingerprints and hair so they can identify him later.  Finally, Oki is transferred into an even smaller box, ready for tomorrow’s journey.  It has to be small so he can’t move around and hurt himself – or us. 

 

We set off early the next day but it’s a long journey with many delays and the vet is worried about Oki spending twenty hours in a very small box. 

 

RIAN WINARDI: [subtitle] “He’s stressed but not too much.  During the journey we tried to keep the box at a constant temperature so that it wasn’t too hot or too cold.  It’s a long journey, a long process.  He needs to be in there for a long time.  As the vet I need to make sure he’s okay”. 

 

SAMANTHA HAWLEY: Now the final leg, a two kilometre walk into the Sungai Lesan Conservation forest.

 

“So, we’ve just actually crossed the river, we’re having a few issues with our camera which is fogging up so it’s a really hard thing to film actually but it’s really quite incredible, what a special moment after a lifetime in captivity they’re just about to release this orangutan in this beautiful, lush forest, exactly where it should be”.

 

Oki isn’t following the script.  Normally orangutans, a solitary animal in the wild, move quickly away from humans and climb a tree. 

 

RIAN WINARDI: “It didn’t go according to plan.  We hoped he wouldn’t turn around and look at people.  But he did.  He’s an ex-rehab orangutan after all”.

 

SAMANTHA HAWLEY:  We leave.  All alone now Oki returns, unsure of what to do or where to go.  He finds a camera in the tree and tries to eat it. 

 

It’s a new day. 

 

[returning to where Oki was released] “A team returned last night and said that Oki had made a nest which was a really, really good sign.  Now we’re heading back up early this morning with the vet to check that he’s okay.  Th next big thing is that he has to have eaten some fruit from the trees.  So, we’ll see.

 

For now, he hasn’t gone far from where he was first released.  Then, he spots us. 

 

[whispering] “So it seems to be following us down the river so the vet’s just told us to hurry up and get away from it. So probably not ideal”.

 

For our own safety we have to leave the path and head through the dense rain forest. 

 

RIAN WINARDI: “He felt upset because we were being too noisy and he’s not used to so much activity.  There were two things.  He was upset and he was hungry”.

 

SAMANTHA HAWLEY: Eventually we shake him off. For Oki there’s a good chance it will all end well.  Sadly, he’s the exception. 

 

EDWIN WIEK: “Those government officials in Indonesia know very well what’s going on. They know who the hunters are and they know who the traders are.  Without help from the authorities, you wouldn’t get these animals out of the country”.

 

SAMANTHA HAWLEY: And this remains a very dangerous game for those trying to expose the corruption.

 

EDWIN WIEK: “When I stop at a red light and a motorbike with two people stop next to me, I sometimes a bit worried when I go somewhere I haven’t been before, but kind of fear more for my Thai colleagues or my Indonesian colleagues like Hardi, whose lives are probably in more danger than mine”.

 

SAMANTHA HAWLEY: As for the smugglers who used Facebook to sell the babies in the taxi, it’s business as normal. We’ve been told by a reliable source that investigations into the case have stalled, even though Thai police know who the perpetrators are, where they live and have bank account evidence against them. 

 

For now, Normita and Shizuka are stuck here in Thailand, their rainforest home in Sumatra is still too dangerous.  Indonesian authorities admit that orangutans are likely to become extinct in the wild in 50 years.  Some conservationists fear it will be much sooner.  Edwin Wiek says that just shouldn’t be allowed to happen.

 

EDWIN WIEK: “Whether they are influential politicians, government people, or just wealthy business people, hit them as hard as you can.  They should be hit as hard as drug dealers or weapon dealers.  That’s what they really are.  Make sure that these poachers are being caught, being stopped, told to stop and hurt them too because if it doesn’t hurt, it won’t work”. 

 

TEXT ON SCREEN: Oki is doing well in the Borneo forests, learning how to live in the wild again.