Slow Loris
Project Introduction
The slow loris in Indonesia is in serious danger of extinction and the greatest threats to its survival are habitat loss and the illegal trade in wildlife. Its huge brown eyes and soft fur make this small nocturnal primate highly prized as a pet and the victim of an online craze created by videos on the internet. Slow lorises are poached from the wild and illegally sold on the street, in animal markets and increasingly on social media sites. The slow lorises’ teeth are clipped off by the traders to make them easier to handle, resulting in the death of many of them from blood loss or infection before they are sold.
Once their teeth have been clipped, rescued lorises are no longer able to fend for themselves back in the wild. In some cases, thanks to assistance and advice from our team of volunteer veterinary dental specialists, it is possible to repair the damage but we also provide a permanent home at our centre for lorises that can never be released.
Primate rehabilitation centre
Our primate rehabilitation centre is set in the beautiful rainforest of Ciapus, near Bogor, on the island of Java. It is about three hours’ drive from Jakarta and it is the only centre in Indonesia to specialise in the rescue and rehabilitation of slow lorises. It boasts a fully equipped veterinary clinic, spacious primate socialisation enclosures, a public education centre, accommodation for volunteers and visitors and a viewing platform for observing the animals. Set apart from the other buildings are quarantine enclosures for new arrivals and sick animals.
Our work
Along with rescues and confiscations, we also carry out research into successful rehabilitation and reintroduction programmes for slow lorises. A number of lorises with their teeth intact have been released wearing radio collars and are being closely monitored by the team.
Our team also supports and assists local authorities and the police in their efforts to apprehend wildlife criminals and bring them to court. Like much illegal trading, nowadays many of the wildlife dealers and traffickers operate mainly on social media platforms such as Facebook and Instagram. Our team has adapted to these new challenges by also moving the focus of their investigative work online. Outreach and education of local communities and more effective law enforcement are vital if this endangered primate is to stand a chance of survival.
Read below for more information about all the aspects of our work to save this vulnerable species.
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Rescue
Slow lorises are protected by international laws and also protected under Indonesian law: the trade or possession of a slow loris is forbidden and a perpetrator can be prosecuted under Indonesian legislation. However, these laws are not strictly enforced in Indonesia and as a result slow lorises are still caught from the wild and sold as pets.
During the early years of the project, most of the lorises we rescued came from pet owners and we were authorised to carry out such operations by the local law enforcement authorities.
Our team would be alerted by the BKSDA (Nature Conservation Agency of Indonesia) or by loris pet owners through the IAR Indonesia online ‘surrender your loris’ portal. This was created to make the process easy and accessible to people in different regions and is publicised through our online social media platforms. Certain rescues were also conducted based on information received by word of mouth.
Nowadays however, we focus our efforts more on trying to tackle the trade at an earlier stage, before the lorises have been sold on as pets. By intercepting the poachers and dealers while the lorises are still in their possession, we are able to rescue them before their teeth have been clipped and before they have spent long in captivity. This means they stand a much better chance of being returned to the wild. It also means that the authorities and the police catch the criminals who are making money out of this cruel trade and causing hundreds of animals to suffer and die in the process.
Such rescue operations are led by the authorities and the police, with an IAR team in the wings to provide emergency treatment and care for the confiscated animals.
When a loris is rescued from a pet owner, the team usually consists of a veterinarian; a member of the education team who informs the pet owners regarding the legalities involved in loris pet keeping, and is also there to help if there is any resistance from the owners to surrendering their loris; a loris keeper or a field staff member who handles the animal and one person to document the rescue.
Once the centre receives information, the rescue team immediately arrives at the location. Upon seeing the loris, the situation is assessed, and one of the following two actions is taken.
- If the loris was caught from the wild and has not been kept as a pet for a long period of time, an on-site medical check is done. If the loris is in good health and dental condition, it is released back into a suitable habitat.
- If the loris seems unwell, has been kept as a pet for a long period of time or is from the market, the loris is taken back to the centre where a thorough medical check-up is conducted and the animal is housed in quarantine, during which it is tagged with a microchip for future identification.
The details of the pet owner, location of rescue, source and history of the loris is noted to maintain our pet owner profile database. A legal document agreeing upon the rescue of the loris is signed by the owner and the Rescue Team members.
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Rehabilitation
Lorises are nocturnal, arboreal and solitary primates which makes the process of rehabilitation challenging. Lorises that are rescued, surrendered or confiscated generally suffer from health and dental problems. Certain individuals also develop behavioural issues and display stereotypical behaviour owing to the stress they have suffered from being caught, traded in pet markets and kept as pets in confined spaces for a long period of time.
On entering our centre, each loris undergoes a thorough medical check, blood and faecal tests and morphometric analysis. If found to be fit, it is put in quarantine for six weeks before being moved to a rehabilitation enclosure. Lorises that require medical attention are kept at the clinic and attended to regularly until considered fit enough to go into quarantine. At this stage, dental extractions are conducted on lorises that are suffering infections after having their teeth clipped, air gun pellets are surgically removed, broken limbs are attended to through routine x-rays and medical care and any other infections and diseases are also treated.
At the end of the quarantine period, the lorises are moved to rehabilitation enclosures at the centre. IAR currently has more than 100 enclosures where lorises are housed individually, in pairs or sometimes in threes, depending on the fluctuations in the number of lorises received as a result of law enforcement activities to mitigate the illegal trade. A special diet consisting of high fibre vegetables, gum (from Acacia) and insects is provided to the lorises to control the problems of obesity and calcium deficiency which are found in lorises on a high glucose diet. During this process, behavioural and feeding data is collected on each of the lorises through which we are able to evaluate which of them require special attention owing to a lack of food intake or to a high level of stereotypical behaviours.
The enclosures are divided into 4 groups: quarantine for new animals that have passed the preliminary health check; sanctuary enclosures for lorises that cannot be released because of the lack of teeth (clipped during their trade); pre-release enclosures for lorises that are scheduled to be reintroduced into their natural habitat and individual cages for lorises still under rehabilitation for subsequent release. All the enclosures are fitted with locomotory enrichment such as rubber ropes, creepers and trees, suspended feeding trays made out of natural material (Bamboo) and sleeping boxes. In addition, the roofs of the pre-release enclosures are left un-covered to give the lorises an opportunity to experience and adapt to natural weather conditions before translocating them to the wild.
Rehabilitation for lorises is very complex owing to their nocturnal nature and the dearth of information regarding their behavioural repertoire in captive conditions and survival rates in the wild. Consequently, we are constantly evaluating and improving our methods, taking into account existing literature and our successes and failures in past efforts. With every release, we hope that the process of rehabilitation at our centre will equip them well for long-term survival in the wild.
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Release
The aim of reintroducing lorises is to return as many suitable individuals as possible back into their natural habitat where the carrying capacity of the area is low in density of lorises. This is in order to reinforce dwindling wild populations and to avoid inbreeding.
All our releases are conducted in accordance with the IUCN Guidelines for Reintroductions. The lorises are released into suitable habitats that are protected, where they will not be at risk from external or anthropogenic threats.
Translocation
The reintroduction process differs depending on the nature of the rescue. If the loris is wild caught and surrendered by communities living around loris habitat areas, they are immediately translocated to the forests after a preliminary medical check by our field vets. These lorises are not monitored as they are still essentially wild.
Habituation
However, a loris previously owned as a pet or confiscated from the trade undergoes a soft release process. This process involves translocating lorises which are fitted with VHF radio collars and are deemed fit for release, from the centre to the release site. Here they are housed in open-top habituation enclosures and given the opportunity to forage and feed on wild food sources and adapt to the weather conditions at the release location for a minimum period of two weeks. Routine behavioural observations are made and their health condition is checked on a daily basis by the field team called the Survey, Release and Monitoring team (SRM).
Release
Lorises that show signs of having adapted well in terms of foraging and feeding on wild food sources, adequate grooming behaviour, and spending most of their time off the ground, are released from the habituation enclosure and monitoring starts immediately. Lorises fitted with collars are monitored for a minimum of three months. Behavioural data is collected through five-minute focal animal scans and GPS points are taken to record loris movements to ensure they are surviving in the wild and exhibiting close to wild behaviours, and to determine how and when they socialise with wild lorises. Data is also collected on the phenology of the vegetation in loris home ranges to evaluate the effect of seasonality on the food sources of lorises.
It is important that habitat surveys are conducted to determine a suitable release site for lorises based on factors such as an existing wild population of lorises that is still small enough to cope with additional individuals, adequate food sources and habitat connectivity. It is also crucial that the habitat is protected, free of any external threats and our programmes must have the support of the local people living around the release site. While the political and social context of Indonesia means there are always threats to natural forests, IAR has conducted extensive surveys and we now release and translocate lorises in protected forests on three islands – Java (West), Sumatra (South) and Kalimantan (West) pertaining to the species of lorises. Currently we have three locations for releases: Gunung Sawal Wildlife Reserve (West Java), Batutegi Protected Forest (Lampung, Sumatra) and Gunung Tarak Nature Reserve (West Kalimantan).
When a monitored loris seems to have adapted well to its surroundings, is seen socialising with wild conspecifics and has formed core areas in a definite home range area, the collar is cut off and monitoring is terminated.
During the entire process of release, if a loris is seen to be suffering from an illness or is wounded, the SRM team assesses its condition with input from the veterinarians and, depending on the severity, the loris is medically treated in the field or brought back to the centre for special care.
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Investigations
One of the main threats to loris populations in Indonesia which is forcing their numbers in the wild to decline rapidly, is the rampant illegal pet trade. Although lorises are protected under national and international laws (CITES Appendix I) and listed as Critically Endangered (Javan lorises) and Vulnerable (Sumatran and Bornean lorises) under the IUCN Red list, lorises continue to be traded in large numbers. During 2017 an estimated 1,698 lorises were hunted from the wild for the trade (based on local bird markets and online trade monitoring data, IAR Indonesia, 2017).
Trade monitoring
In 2011, we established a multi-disciplinary team to tackle the illegal trade in slow lorises. A multi-dimensional approach was implemented to understand trade networks. It focuses on profiling pet owners, physical markets and online trade monitoring; identifying hunting hotspots and profiling hunters; awareness and education activities targeting different social demographics involved in the trade and finally increasing the capacity of law enforcement and government officials. Since then, we have set up a strong network of investigators in South Sumatra, West Kalimantan and West and Central Java and strengthened relationships with local government and law enforcement bodies and the police force in these provinces.
Law enforcement
We have achieved several successes with law enforcement operations, particularly the major ones which resulted in prosecutions of perpetrators and a large number of lorises confiscated. From 2013 to 2016, together with the Indonesian authorities, we conducted law enforcement activities in West Java, Sumatra and West Kalimantan, resulting in 11 seizures of 447 slow lorises and 19 individual arrests of traders, as well as members of a slow loris pet lover group and a trade syndicate.
Early 2017 saw the arrests of three online traders of lorises in West Java where 41 lorises were confiscated and the bust of an illegal sanctuary for lorises with the intent of breeding in West Kalimantan where 18 lorises were confiscated. All confiscations were widely publicised in both print and electronic media resulting in a decrease in market displays of lorises on sale (evaluated through routine market monitoring activities) which had been identified as one of the major drivers for loris demand.
Law enforcement work to mitigate the trade is on-going owing to the extent and the complexity of trade networks involved. IAR also routinely conducts capacity building workshops with government agencies and the police in investigation techniques, species identification, understanding and recognising trade routes and encouraging fast reaction time to wildlife crime in order to tackle the trade more effectively and to see it through to the prosecution of offenders.
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Education
In combination with conservation programmes, education activities are vital in order to have an impact on people’s attitudes towards conservation issues. As different social demographics are involved in slow loris conservation, such as buyers, traders, hunters and people in edge habitat areas where releases are conducted, IAR implements different approaches to educate and create awareness. Some of these include an online platform called ‘Kukangku’ which targets potential buyer and pet owners, awareness campaigns in public spaces, education programmes in schools and for adults around forest areas used for releases and workshops and seminars conducted at universities in Indonesia.
The results of our education and awareness programmes are also assessed in different ways. Our online platform has shown great success where pet owners who are asked to take down posts of lorises as pets have responded positively, decreasing the viewership of such posts. In addition, many loris pet owners have also surrendered their pets to the centre on learning that keeping lorises as pets is illegal through our online posts. Education programmes around release sites have been carried out in Batutegi, Ciamis and around Mount Salak. A result of our education programmes is the inclusion of local people in our field activities which has supplied an alternative livelihood and reduced the dependency on forests and forest products. Over the years we have also received a number of university students helping with our projects as volunteers or conducting research in collaboration with IAR. This is seen to be a positive outcome of our education programmes in universities across Indonesia, which helps encourage students to participate in activities and continue their career in the field of conservation.
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Top Slow Loris Facts
- Slow lorises are divided into nine separate species: the Bengal, Bornean, Sunda or greater, Hiller’s, Javan, Kayan, Philippine, pygmy and Sody’s. The two species we rescue are:
- Javan slow loris – Nycticebus javanicus
- Sunda or greater slow loris – Nycticebus coucang
- Javan slow lorises are listed as Critically Endangered on the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species, Sunda slow lorises are listed as Endangered. Both face a high risk of extinction in the wild.
- The slow loris is a nocturnal primate that has forward-facing eyes and human-like hands with an opposable thumb.
- The name ‘loris’ is Dutch and means ‘clown’, which probably comes from the facial features that help to define the species.
- Although slow lorises are seen as slow movers, they frequently ’race walk’ and can move up to 8 km per night. They are also able to remain totally still for hours on end if required.
- Their movement looks similar to that of a snake due to their twisting movement caused by having several more vertebrae in their spine than other primates.
- The slow loris has one of the longest tongues of all the primates, which they use to drink nectar.
- The slow loris species is easily captured because of its slow movement, nocturnal habits, and its tendency to sleep on exposed branches.
- The loris is the only existing venomous primate species in the world. Its venom is produced by mixing secretions from a gland on its elbow with its own saliva, which is then penetrated into the bloodstream of its victims using its razor-sharp teeth.
- The slow loris is an omnivore with a diet consisting of flowers, sap, nectar, fruit, insects, eggs, birds, and small vertebrates like lizards.
- Slow lorises are seed dispersers and pollinators which helps to regenerate their forest habitats.