by Dr. Raffaella Commitante
Continuing on with our adventures in Jogja at the 2014 OC/OVAG Veterinary Workshop!
After a bit of administrative housekeeping announcements we moved right into husbandry and enrichment. This year’s focus was on husbandry and welfare issues. Claire from Chester Zoo and Yenny from the Sumatran Orangutan Conservation Programme (SOCP) gave a joint presentation on specific issues in their respective locations.
The participants then broke apart into groups again to continue to work on various scenarios. This time they were challenged with designing a new enclosure for animals that have special health challenges (blind, arthritic etc.).
We then moved on to some really interesting case studies. The highlight was about two blind orangutans – a male and a female “finding” each other – yes, they were in separate enclosures that were close to each other – and the female unexpectedly giving birth to twins!
In the afternoon I gave a talk on Wild Animal Welfare which I think really interested our OVAG members. I wanted to be sure that they all understood that this is not an issue targeting Indonesia – but that all countries worldwide struggle with providing proper welfare for animals in their care.
