
Day 5 – Final Day
by Raffaella Commitante
Well, we have wound up the final day of OVAG 2016 and it has been an amazing workshop – full of many challenges. Eye work was the definite top winner in the challenge contest as many orangutans do suffer from eye issues and the vets were hungry for more training.
Dr. AJ Marlar, one of the few (perhaps the only) wildlife ophthalmologists is meeting that challenge – she promises to come back next year as well as visiting center’s individually to address specific eye issues!!!
Though it was not all work! We did have our new resident barista, vet Ricko Jaya brought his hand grinder, espresso coffee pot and burner (yes, he makes espresso in the field!!!) and made us all cups of the most delicious Sumtran coffee…WOW!!!!

Next year we will be back in Jogja, but Ricko has extended an invitation to hold our 2018 (and 10th workshop) in Aceh, Northern Sumatra.
Day 4

by Raffaella Commitante
Today was a very exciting day as we were able to see the benefits of our OVAG network in real time. Yenny, one of our OVAG vets (from SOCP), had her abstract accepted for this year’s IPS (International Primate Society) meeting in Chicago. Sadly, she was not able to find funding to go and present – until our OVAG meeting! Thanks to our friends Nancy Lung (Journal of Zoo and Wildlife Medicine) who was at this year’s OVAG and Joe Smith of Ft. Wayne Children’s Zoo (who has attended OVAG in the past) – within 24 hours – funding for Yenny came through!!!! She will leave in two weeks for America where she will be not only able to attend the IPS meeting but also attend the Orangutan SSP meeting in Wisconsin. Her journey will continue when she flies to Seattle as the guest of Dr. AJ Marlar, a wildlife ophthalmologist who was also at this year’s OVAG – our network of friends helping friends is truly an amazing resource.


Days 2 & 3
by Raffaella Commitante,
Hello again OVAG fans!!!!
Days two and three were packed with work!!!! A very intense respiratory disease presentation and some very interesting orangutan case studies along with an OVAG strategy meeting where we discussed design options for a new logo and possibilities for our vets to go to conferences !!!! A very, very fun and informative orthopedic session where I was the wounded orangutan needing emergency fracture care followed by mammal eye issues and ways to identify specific lesions that appear on and in the eye, with a focus on orangutan eyes. Most orangutan eye issues seen by our vets are due to gun pellets that either get lodged and cannot be removed (as long as the tissue is healthy they do not necessarily need to be tampered with); or the damage to the eye is so severe that it needs to be removed.
A very intense day – but we had some relief when we visited the Sabah Wildlife Department genetics lab while there was a down pour!!!! Wet but fun and informative – AND it was our group photo day as you can see we are all wearing our OVAG t-shirts!!!!!!
Day One

by Raffaella Commitante
Hello from Sabah, Malaysian Borneo for our 8th annual Orangutan Veterinary Advisory Group Workshop!!!! This year, we have been invited to Sabah by the Sabah Wildlife Department (SWD) in Kota Kinabalu. On our opening day, we had a speech prepared by the Director of SWD, a welcome by Steve Unwin and me (Raffaella!!!!) all handled beautifully by our master of ceremonies, Ricko Jaya.
This year we will be focusing on respiratory diseases, ophthalmology, orthopedics, primate evolution and orangutan behavior as well as continuing our work with Disease Risk Analysis and review of case studies at the various orangutan centers presented by our team of Orangutan Rehabilitation Center veterinarians.
Here are our vets hard at working taking their pre-workshop quiz which we use as part of our evaluation for the effectiveness of our workshops. They looked much happier after it was done! They will take the same quiz again at the end of the workshop.