Читать книгу Rescuing Ladybugs - Jennifer Skiff - Страница 12
ОглавлениеPORCUPINE, MONKEY, ELEPHANT, PTEROPOD
The Power of the Collective Voice
Perth, Australia
“Come and see dragons with me! I understand they’ve just eaten a Japanese tourist. Isn’t that wonderful?” Guy joked in his posh British accent. Guy was calling from Bali, Indonesia, and paused, presumably to take a drag from his ever-present cigarette. “If you come, I promise not to order suckling pig at any of the local establishments.”
I first met my most eccentric friend when he was Guy David Greville. Then he became Lord Brook, and he was now Guy Warwick, the Earl of Warwick. Behind the façade of his often sarcastic, sometimes shocking, but always witty repartee, he was a highly intelligent, deeply caring man whose friendship I cherished. While our views on animal welfare oftentimes differed, he supported my advocacy and had, more than once, let me use stays in his Spanish villa as an auction item to raise money for charities.
Guy was also one of Jon’s closest friends, and he wanted Jon and me to go on vacation with him and his partner, Natalie Bovill, to the island of Flores, Indonesia, where he was thinking of buying land. He was enticing me with the promise of seeing Komodo dragons.
I’d been intrigued by the giant lizard since reading the book Last Chance to See by Douglas Adams and Mark Carwardine, about unique animals on the verge of extinction. Guy knew this, since we’d once seen a Komodo dragon together at a Balinese zoo, and indeed, I couldn’t resist the thought of seeing a “dragon” in the wild. Eight weeks later, in 2013, Jon and I met Guy and Natalie in Bali, where we boarded a small plane for the hour-long flight to Flores.
The entry to the island couldn’t have been more spectacular. As we flew over hundreds of uninhabited lush, green, volcanic islands, where high cliffs dropped to white beaches that bled into turquoise water, a calm washed over me.
Island of Flores, Indonesia
A smiling man with light brown skin and dressed in a khaki-colored uniform introduced himself as our driver and proceeded to take us on a twenty-minute, hold-on-to-someone-to-stay-upright bumpy ride to Jayakarta Suites, a four-star hotel on the southwestern tip of the island.
As we turned into the resort’s palm-lined drive, Guy exclaimed sarcastically, “Oh no! I’m afraid monkey is on the menu.” As we drove past a clump of metal cages, I looked back and noticed someone was chained to a tree.
“Is that a monkey?” I asked.
“Yes, and a menagerie of others are tucked away in the back garden,” Guy replied, then teased: “Apparently, I’ve chosen hotels badly. We’ve landed in the only one where they keep the meat on the premises.”
A few minutes later, while the others walked into the hotel, I went in the opposite direction.
I stopped near the monkey who was chained to the tree. Around his neck was a chain-link collar inside a clear plastic tube. His hand reached out to me and his mouth opened to speak, but he made no sound. He picked up a Kit Kat candy wrapper and showed it to me, pleading for another. I looked around for a caretaker. There was no one in sight.
The sound of honking geese caught my attention: Four white birds with orange-colored bills stood in the corner of a five-by-five-foot enclosure, beckoning. As I approached, they became excited, waddling back and forth in their small space. Directly above them was another cage: In it was a porcupine and an empty clamshell. Neither cage contained food or water.
Three feet away was another, larger enclosure, about sixteen square feet. The four sides were mesh wire, and the floor was concrete. In it, eleven monkeys on short chains were clipped to the wire walls in such a way that they couldn’t reach each other or the floor. They were all clinging to the wire mesh. The floor beneath them was immaculate, with no sign of feces. Like the other cages, there were no food or water feeders.
As I scanned the scene, all seventeen animals fell silent, staring at me.
“I’ll be right back,” I said.
In the lobby, I passed Jon, Natalie, and Guy, already dressed in swimsuits and sarongs, on their way to the pool. I headed for the front desk and asked for the hotel’s manager. The young man didn’t speak English, and my Indonesian was limited to basic niceties. After a brief interchange that involved me mimicking a monkey, I understood that the manager, Mr. Agus Tabah Wardhana, was away for the day. I was given an appointment for the next day at 2:30 PM.
I walked into the dining room and through the swinging doors of the kitchen, where I was again forced to play charades with a chef who spoke little English. Ten minutes later, I left carrying food for the animals: a bucket of rice that I understood was for the geese and another bucket of sliced fruit for the monkeys and porcupine.
First, I stopped at the gray-colored monkey who was chained to a tree and handed him a slice of watermelon. He snatched it from my hand, took a bite, and responded by drawing his lips back into a huge, toothy smile.
Nearby, the geese honked for my attention, pleading to be released. The presence of a nearby pond, and their inability to get to it, must have been torturous. I tossed the rice from the bucket into their enclosure through the wire.
The sign on the porcupine’s cage read “Twinkle.” I took a slice of watermelon to a corner of the cage and pushed part of it through the wire.
“Twinkle,” I called.
The porcupine’s nose lifted but he didn’t leave his corner. I walked around and dropped a piece of the fruit through the wire in front of the quilled animal. He sniffed at and quickly took it, his milky-white eyes revealing his blindness. When he finished, he turned to me, asking for another piece. I obliged. For a nocturnal animal, his situation was dire. He had no water, no den, and nothing to shade him from the hot, blinding sun.
The gray-colored monkeys were long-tailed macaques, named because their tails are longer than their bodies. In Indonesia, they’re also called crab-eating macaques because they swim and dive for crabs. I have interacted with macaques on many occasions in Bali; they are omnivores, and females dominate their social groups.
They were fearful as I neared, quickly snatching the fruit I offered and devouring it while keeping their eyes on me.
A man appeared, carrying a broom. He smiled at me and nodded, seemingly pleased at what I was doing. I assumed he must be the animals’ caretaker.
“Where is the water?” I asked, knowing he probably didn’t understand English.
I looked around. There wasn’t a hose; just an empty bucket outside the monkeys’ enclosure.
“Water,” I asked, pointing into the bucket. He didn’t seem to understand. I picked an empty water bottle out of a trash can and pretended to drink. He smiled, walked away, and returned ten minutes later with an unopened bottle of water, which he handed to me, apparently thinking I was asking for myself. I unscrewed the cap, unlatched Twinkle’s enclosure, righted the clamshell, and filled it with water.
Now the man smiled and nodded; he understood. He left again and returned with a bucket of water, putting it into the enclosure with the geese. I pointed to the monkeys, and he pointed at the water bottle I was still holding. Confused, I gave it to him. He proceeded to walk around the monkey enclosure and toss spurts of water in each animal’s face. The monkeys recoiled. Only one opened his mouth, catching a bit of the water thrown at him. The others went without.
The next morning, after a restless night, I waited for the restaurant to open. I had a coffee and a glass of pineapple juice, then swept the buffet of fruit and bread and took it to the animals.
This time, when I called Twinkle, he greeted me like a lost friend, running toward my voice. I pushed a piece of cantaloupe through the wire. As I watched him eat, I wondered if I might be standing too close. I’d pulled plenty of quills from the faces of dogs who’d interfered with porcupines. I understood the pain Twinkle was capable of delivering, but I couldn’t help but tempt fate. I put my index finger through a hole in the wire and scratched the top of his head. To my surprise, he leaned into the scratch like a dog.
Tempted to release the geese, I didn’t, fearful that this unauthorized act would interfere with the negotiations I hoped to have with the hotel’s manager. Instead, I fed them the equivalent of a loaf of bread.
As I neared the monkey enclosure, the tiny creatures with big eyes reached their arms through the metal bars, hands open, begging for a morsel of food. I walked around the cage quickly, handing each one a piece of watermelon, cantaloupe, or banana. They snatched the fruit with one hand, while holding on to the wire with another, and ate hurriedly.
I still hadn’t formulated a strategy for my meeting with Mr. Tabah, the hotel’s manager. I didn’t know what I was going to ask him to do. The previous night, I’d asked Guy for advice; he speaks fluent Indonesian and has lived on Bali for a good part of his life. Guy warned: “Indonesians will tell tourists one thing and do another. They know that you will leave. If that menagerie is bringing them money, they will not shut it down.”
Mr. Tabah, a tall, thin man with a high forehead and wearing wire-rimmed glasses, greeted me with a handshake in the hotel’s foyer at 2:30.
“I understand you are concerned about the monkeys,” he said. “How may I assist you?”
“Yes. I’m concerned for the monkeys, the geese, and the porcupine,” I replied.
“Why don’t we walk to them and talk along the way,” he suggested, motioning toward the door.
As we walked, I made a point to summarize my credentials: I had decades of experience working directly with animals in shelters and sanctuaries, among other things, and perhaps most of all, I had 150,000 animal-loving social media followers. Mr. Tabah seemed to understand that these followers represented a powerful force.
“Mr. Tabah, you have a very beautiful, special hotel,” I said.
“Thank you,” he replied.
“But I’m very disappointed to see such poor treatment of animals. It has ruined my vacation, not made it better. People come here to see animals in their natural habitat, enjoying life — not caged.”
“I understand what you’re saying.” He nodded.
“You do?”
“Yes. You are not the first person who has complained,” he said. “Many have complained and noted their displeasure when reviewing the hotel. But this is a complicated situation. This zoo was started by the man who started the hotel, and he’s been very proud of it. It has been a difficult subject to discuss with him.”
Mr. Tabah stopped between the porcupine and monkey enclosures. “We do our best to take care of these animals.”
“With respect, Mr. Tabah, there is no food or water in these cages, the monkeys are chained even inside the cage, and the porcupine doesn’t have a log to sit on or shade to protect him. He’s probably blind because of the sun exposure. And these geese — why are they even in here?”
“The geese are here because hotel guests complained of the noise they made at night as they walked the grounds. The porcupine, Twinkle, was part of the original zoo. We had another porcupine, his friend, that died. The monkey cage started with a few, and then people gave us their pet monkeys. They fight if they’re unchained.” He paused. “Miss Skiff, I am interested in what you have to say. What is it that you suggest we do?”
In that split second, as I looked into the eyes of the geese, who were watching intently and seemingly listening to our conversation, I decided to go for broke.
“Let’s release these monkeys back into the jungle. I’d like to build a proper enclosure for Twinkle, and I suggest you either find a good home for the geese or release them during the day if they are only causing problems at night. You won’t have to worry about feeding them because they will forage. In fact — why don’t we give that a try now?” I asked.
Mr. Tabah turned to a man who was gardening nearby and spoke to him in Indonesian. The man walked to the cage and unlatched the gate. The geese pushed open the door and sprinted across the lawn to the edge of the pond. Then, for what seemed like five minutes, they drank, scooping water with their bills and tossing it down their throats by lifting their heads into the air.
“Thank you,” I said, touching my hand to my heart. “This makes me happy.”
“I agree with you,” Mr. Tabah said, turning toward the monkeys. “I understand people don’t want to see this. But I don’t think we can release all the monkeys.”
“Why?” I asked.
“It is not something I am able to discuss with you,” he replied, looking serious.
I understood that I needed to be careful and respectful. I didn’t know the politics of the hotel’s zoo, but I could see he was genuinely considering my request. “I understand. How many do you think you would consider releasing?” I asked.
He wrung his hands, looking beyond the monkeys, lost in thought.
“I will have to get permission from our office in Jakarta. I would like to work with you. We will have to wait and see. If we are able to release monkeys, are you available to do this on the day after tomorrow?” he asked.
“I sure am,” I smiled.
In the lobby, as we parted, he asked me to call him Agus, and I bowed with my eyes closed and hands clasped, symbolizing my gratitude. “Terima kasih,” I said in Indonesian: “Thank you.”
I found Jon, Guy, and Nat on the terrace having cocktails.
Guy winced when he heard about my exchange.
“I’m sorry to disappoint, darling Jen, but they’ll never do it. I’ve lived here for thirty years. They want to please you, but there’s nothing in it for them.” He paused and took a long drag from his cigarette. “Are you terribly disappointed?”
“I have hope, Guy,” I said. “I hope you’re wrong!”
As I watched the sunset, my eyes canvassed the islands. The sea’s color was changing with the light, shifting from turquoise to an indigo blue. Despite the calm water and comforting colors, I remained anxious about what lay ahead.
That night I called Dr. Barbara Royal.
A good friend, Barb had a thriving veterinary practice in Chicago and was one of the few vets I knew who worked with exotic wildlife. I needed her advice. I explained the situation — I might soon be re-releasing monkeys into the jungle after years of captivity, monkeys destined to die otherwise — so how could I ensure their survival?
Barb asked if they could be taken to a rehabilitation center to prepare them for a release. When I explained this wasn’t possible — this remote island had no wildlife centers — she instructed me to feed up the monkeys. Then, on the day of their release, I should leave them near a source of fresh water and fruit and nut trees, along with a three-day supply of fruit.
The next day, after a massive monkey feeding, Jon convinced me to join a morning boat excursion to visit parts of the island not accessible by land. We left the quiet seaside village of Labuan Bajo on a twenty-eight-foot runabout and were immediately transported to another world. Emerald green hills jutted from turquoise water, and white beaches lit the way.
We hugged the coast for two hours, never seeing other people. The coastline was pure, untouched by development, and yet, beneath us, I was surprised to see that much of the coral was bleached white. We learned that it had been destroyed by dynamite fishing, an illegal practice where dynamite is thrown into the center of a school of fish. The dead or stunned fish float to the surface of the water and are easily collected. Just like development destroys habitat, dynamite was killing life-sustaining ecosystems.
On the way back, we detoured to a tiny, white island that appeared in the distance like a diamond on a bed of aquamarines. As we neared, it became clear that the oasis was created by a heap of shells. We anchored and jumped overboard. Underwater, the sea floor was like a jewelry counter of the most magnificent shells. I picked up an empty, chambered nautilus. I’d never seen one in the wild before, and holding it to my chest like a treasure, I rose to the surface, closed my eyes, floated on my back, and said a prayer for the monkeys.
When I arrived at the hotel, there was a message from Agus. He wanted me to meet him in two days at 7 AM. There was going to be a monkey release.
The next morning I fed the animals and set off on our planned adventure to see dragons on Komodo Island (a story I tell in chapter 3). Then, at dawn’s first light on the day of the promised release, I tentatively walked out of the hotel and saw a flurry of activity near the cages. My heart lifted. Six men were standing by the large enclosure wearing uniforms of collared shirts with khaki pants. The monkeys were inquisitive, eyes wide, peering between the cage wires. Nearby, the back of a small pickup truck was stacked with four wooden crates.
Agus greeted me.
“Nine of the monkeys will be released today. Three have to stay,” he said.
“This is wonderful news,” I said. “How will you choose which monkeys stay?”
“I was hoping you could help me with that decision.”
“Are there any that were born here?”
“Yes, there is a mother who gave birth to two while she has been with us,” he said, pointing to the mother, who hissed, showing her teeth. “She came from the forest, but not the babies.”
“Then, if three are to be left behind, it makes sense that she stays with her babies. Their chances of survival are less than the monkeys who have come from the forest,” I said, regretfully. “May I ask a favor? When the others have been released, will you please take the collars off the remaining monkeys so they can move around and play in the cage, and may I work with your staff to repair this monkey cage and the porcupine’s, too?”
“That would be nice of you,” he replied. “I’m very happy to accept your offer.”
Agus then gave instructions for the work to begin. One man opened the enclosure door, unchained a monkey from the wire, and placed him on top of a wooden crate in the back of the truck. He held the monkey while another man lifted wire cutters to the monkey’s neck. The monkey, to my surprise, bowed his head to facilitate the removal of his steel burden. It was as if he knew what was about to happen and offered no resistance.
After ten minutes, the men finished cutting the rusty chains from the monkey’s neck, and then they carefully lowered him through a top hole in one of the crates. Immediately, the monkey reached his tiny black hand, whose long fingers resembled my own, through the slats. I offered my finger, and like a baby, he took it.
One by one the metal collars were removed and the monkeys were put into the transport crates. The door to the enclosure was closed, leaving the mother and her two children behind. I went to her to apologize, and she hissed at me. As I got into a van, I thought about how I deserved that for leaving her behind.
The caravan into the jungle included two small pickup trucks carrying the crated monkeys, a third truck with staff, and a van with Agus, Jon, and me. We stopped once briefly at a makeshift market where a man was selling fruit from a blue tarp on the ground. Jon and I purchased all his bananas and other fruit, which we added to the supply of food we’d brought from the hotel.
As we traveled into the mountains, the sun revealed a wet and glistening, lush green countryside. We were taking the monkeys home, to the place where they’d been kidnapped, and I was filled with hope for them.
After an hour, the caravan stopped at an unlikely bend on a winding mountain road.
“This is it,” Agus announced.
We got out and unloaded. While teams of men lifted the ends of each crate, others bundled tarps with the fruit and carried them on their shoulders. Agus led the way as we formed a single line and descended into the jungle, following a mountain stream down a steep, slippery hill until the sunlight disappeared, blocked by the canopy of trees.
Birdsong was all around us. I looked up to see them but the birds were elusive. But I did see an abundance of mangosteen, duku, salak, and star fruit dangling from the trees. Agus had assured me the release site had plenty of fruit, leaves, roots, and bark, all the foods that would make up the majority of the monkeys’ diet. As we walked deeper into the tropical forest, it felt like we’d entered an Eden for monkeys.
Agus stopped at a place where the water pooled. The crates were gently placed on the ground within five feet of one another, and as Barb had instructed, the fruit was placed near the crates.
The monkeys peered through the slats. They were silent, as if holding their breath in anticipation. I lifted my camera and, in unison, the men opened the doors. The monkeys shot from the crates like bullets from a gun. Within three seconds they were gone. I was left with only one image on my camera — a shot of the men with their hands on the crate doors, and the blurred, ghostlike images of the monkeys in flight.
I looked up, searching the canopy, but they were nowhere to be seen. We lingered briefly, taking in the moment and the beauty of the place, and then left, leaving the crates and food behind.
Back at the hotel I plunged into the pool, and then joined Jon, Guy, and Nat for lunch. Guy was surprised and pleased when I told him of our unexpected adventure.
“What about the other poor creatures you’ve left behind,” he teased. But there was a cutting truth in his words. I had to make it better for those who were left behind. So when they headed off for a motorbike excursion, I went back to the enclosures.
Two men from the hotel staff met me there, and mixing pidgin English with a bit of Indonesian and a lot of pantomiming, I explained what I wanted to do.
We left together and arrived back at the cages an hour later with several long, thick ropes, planks of wood, buckets, bamboo mats, and one semi-hollowed log I’d found on the edge of the property.
We started with the monkey enclosure. The monkeys remained chained in the same places, and they watched with keen interest as we hung ropes from one side of the cage to the other, put up a tire swing, created wooden perches, and positioned accessible water wells using repurposed milk containers.
We started renovations on Twinkle’s enclosure by unrolling a used bamboo blind, spreading it over most of the exposed wire in his cage. He stayed in the cage while we did this, never threatening. Instead, he was inquisitive, his head in the air and his nose active. When we finished the floor, he stepped on it, took another step, then another, and then danced, lifting his feet and turning in circles with obvious happiness. It may have been the first time his feet had touched a flat surface since he’d been taken from the wild, and his excitement was contagious. We all laughed as he pranced around the cage.
I lured Twinkle away from the door of the enclosure with a piece of watermelon. As he nibbled on it, one of the men moved the four-foot-long, two-foot-wide log into a corner of the cage. Then I walked to the corner of the cage behind the log and called Twinkle’s name.
Twinkle headed toward me but was blocked by the log. He stopped, sniffed, and lifted his foot, touching the wood, assessing the intrusion. Then it was as if something deep inside his soul triggered a genetic understanding of the log’s purpose. He ran around it several times, his joy apparent, and started excitedly digging into its center.
Finally, the three remaining monkeys were, as Agus had promised, released within their enclosure. I watched as the metal was cut from their necks and felt their relief. I thanked the men with a traditional bow and said, “Terima kasih.” The men thanked me in return, and I held myself back from giving them an American high five. I didn’t have to. We were all clearly pleased by our accomplishments.
When I returned a few hours later, at dusk, the geese were still in the pond, two monkeys were playing on a rope, a third monkey was sitting on the tire swing, and Twinkle, my dear Twinkle, was asleep inside his log.
At sunrise the next morning, I sat down in the restaurant in a chair facing the Flores Sea. The same familiar waitress, a young lady with long, shiny black hair tied back in a ponytail, greeted me with a coffee and a generous plate of cut fruit. She was smiling.
“Terima kasih,” I said.
“I know what you do,” she said in English as she placed the cup and plate on the table and stepped back. Then she put one hand over her heart and said, “Thank you, Monkey Lady.”
I smiled and nodded, feeling overwhelmed by her gesture.
A few moments later, a waiter approached. He stopped a few feet from me, and when I looked up at him, he stood at attention, beat a fist on his chest above his heart twice, and said, “Monkey Lady.”
As he turned away, another man approached and did the same thing, followed by another waitress who clasped her palms together in front of her chest and bowed. “Thank you, Monkey Lady,” she said.
As she walked away, my eyes followed. Gathered near the kitchen door, the staff were watching me. I waved, prompting smiles and nods in return. And then it hit: a rush of emotion. My eyes filled with tears, my face flushed, and I nodded my thanks with a quivering smile.
Their demonstration fell like a ray of sunshine on a stormy day. Their hearts, too, had been pained by what they’d witnessed.
On the path to do what’s right, we’re never alone. My experience has been that when we speak for those who cannot, an army builds and walks with us. In rescuing the monkeys, I did not lead the charge. Instead, I was only one last voice of reason, one that followed, and helped facilitate, what many others, both hotel guests and staff, had wanted before me.
Afterward, I stayed in touch with Agus by email. His replies were always short, but he let me know the animals were fine and the hotel was following the feeding regime I’d suggested. Then, six months after the monkey release, I received an unexpected email. Agus was very pleased to tell me that he’d closed the hotel’s zoo permanently, and the three remaining monkeys in captivity — the mother and her two children — had been taken to the release site and set free. The four geese had been placed in a welcoming home. The only sad news was that Twinkle the porcupine had died.
For me, I felt some relief knowing that the unnecessary suffering Twinkle had endured was over. I only hoped he’d died peacefully, in his log. My brief relationship with a porcupine had shown me that gentle souls come in all forms and that they, like us, can experience joy. Without his prickly exterior, Twinkle was a dog, imprisoned in a cage, yet grateful for the smallest kindness. I trusted his soul was now in a better place.
That night the stars were bright in the Southern Hemisphere. Each person who’d spoken out on behalf of these animals had also, unwittingly, raised the already-present consciousness of the zoo’s keeper, Agus Tabah Wardhana. Sure, the threat of lost tourism dollars to the hotel may have influenced the first release, but the second act — the shuttering of the zoo — was fueled by compassion. It was further proof of the transformative power that is created when we raise our collective voice to demand change.
