Animal stories

Here is a thread I created to submit animal stories (fictional). Do any of your Zoochatters write these?

 

I do! Ill try to get mine up soon.... Its in a PDF document form

 

The Story of Sumatra-
Chapter 1- Jing-Jing-
Deep in the forests of Sumatra, Jing-Jing's baby was born. The pregnancy had been a risky one because Jing-Jing was 45 years old, old. The baby's father, Dajang, was younger, at 39 years old. Jing-Jing and Dajang sound like names in the Sumatran forest, but it was not just any forest and any baby. The baby was not like the children that run around barefoot, often without a shirt on, in the forest villages of the Pelabara River Valley in Sumatra. The forest was the Pelabara Rainforest Reserve, a 999-acre tract owned by the Sumatran Rainforest Foundation. Jing-Jing, Dajang, and the baby lived in a troop, in the trees and beautiful flowers of Sumatra. The baby was an endangered Sumatran orangutan. Villagers venturing into the forest called the baby (a male) Jomoh, meaning "noble" in the Budar Indonesian language. Muhammad Meila was the first to notice the baby as he went into the forest to chop wood. He passed the troop and saw Jing-Jing with the tiny baby! Jomoh was growing well and everyone in the troop accepted him except for Ali, a young male of about six or seven years old. Ali was jealous that Jomoh was getting so much attention. An orangutan birth was a cause for celebration in the Pelabara Valley. But amidst the happiness of the rare birth, there was sadness. One of the park's elephants, a tusker, had been killed. The tusker bull was nearly blind, a result of a fight years earlier with a villager and his axe. The tusker's body was found on the river near Dohong village. Villagers nicknamed the tusker, "Masi" meaning "blind" from masi jomoh/masi ahman (blind noble/blind hero), coming from Sabuh the blind noble in Pelabara folklore. Among the orangutans and elephants were clearings and small villages. The house of Doman and Meringita Ajah was a simple thatched hut with hosan plants (marsh grass for a roof), with a dog, a pig, chickens and a goat. The market was full of men smoking cigarettes and people calling out their wares and prices. Doman and Meringita had 16 children. Doman and Meringita had had seven and Doman had had five from a previous marriage. Doman had had three from a previous affair with a man named Mati and one, Hoon Jah, was the daughter of a Malaysian acquaintaince of Doman's sister, Busa, in Medan. The children ranged from 19 years old to 6 months of age. The oldest was a boy, named Anjo, and the youngest Simallah, a girl. A Pelabara ranger, Chris Walchak from Ohio, was staying with the family as part of Rangers to Villagers (RtV) a project in the Pelabara Reserve. Chris saw that Simallah was awake, so he said to Meringita in the local north Sumatran dialect of Indonesian (the main language of Doman and Meringita's village, Dohong). "Lift her out of her crib and hand her to me."
Chris, a village doctor in Kenya and Tanzania for five years, was examining all the children, starting with Simallah. Chris was especially making sure none of them had infections caused by certain rainforest plants' sap. Chris knew the oldest, Anjo, Mateos (17 years old), and Muhammad (15 years old) worked in the rainforest sometimes and would sometimes get sap on their hands from plants. Chris spoke to baby Simallah in Indonesian as he worked quickly and efficiently. He even pulled out a baby toy made of interlocking pipe cleaners from his bag for Simallah to grab while he worked. Chris found no sap on Simallah's body. Meanwhile, Jomoh was growing up healthy in the reserve. Everyone thought Jomoh would grow up to be the next "king of the troop". Jomoh and his troop were looking for food in the branches, going close to a troop of siamang. One of the siamang, a mother named Merah, journeyed down onto a lower branch and landed headfirst inside a quarry of clay. The clay diggers, including Mateos Ajah, helped remove Merah from the quarry and put her back inside the tree. The siamangs whooped out to Jing-Jing and Jomoh. Mateos Ajah dug clay and put it in a cart. Clay digging paid poorly, but it was always there in the Pelabara Valley. Mateos was paid 31 cents (4,000 Indonesian rupiah) an hour only. Mateos worked eight hours a day, six days a week, so he made a mere 189,050 rupiah ($14.90) a week, the equivalent of only $775 a year. The gray and blue clay, on the Pelabara River, was valued in Medan, Bukitinggi and Jakarta. Jomoh was five months old, nearly six, when he was near the clay-digging quarry. Mateos Ajah was using machinery with a sharp blade to cut a hole in the clay. The hole led to water underground (500-600 feet underground). The water had to be siphoned out so the clay could be dug out easily. Jomoh and Jing-Jing were swinging in trees above and Jomoh was getting ready to nurse when a troop of siamang bumped into Jomoh, who was sitting on a branch. The branch fell and Jomoh fell into the quarry. Jomoh's arm was cut by the machinery.
Mateos said to Kubang, the boss, "I have to take the baby orangutan to Dohong."
Kubang says, "However long you take it comes out of your pay. Dohong is five kilometers away."
Mateos sneered and said, "More like two and a half." Mateos was fast so it took him only 11 minutes to run 2 1/2 kilometers to Dohong. Chris Walchak took the baby in his jeep to the SORO (Sumatran Orangutan Rescue Center) in the town of Medan. It was 1 hour and 45 minutes to SORO Medan. Willie Smitts, the head of SORO Medan, told Chris that Jomoh was badly injured.
"I grew up in Dohong. My father, Numak, had a friend named Sabat who lost his arm digging clay with a blade. Hopefully Number 59 will survive. He is the 59th this year."
Jomoh was called Number 59, no longer the future noble. He was just an injured baby orangutan, in a large cage with a blanket, toys, food and enrichment. Three days later, the veterinarian, Liana Wilson, made the decision to amputate Jomoh's arm from the elbow down. The blade hit Jomoh (No59)'s arm about three inches below Jomoh's elbow. Jomoh was nicknamed Kutingga, or "no arm". Kutingga was now different. He only had half a right arm. Jing-Jing was heartbroken. She had no idea what had happened to her baby. After nine weeks in the orangutan clinic, Jomoh was eight months old. He was completely dependent on humans because he was bottle-fed because there were no healthy adult female orangutans lactating at SORO Medan. Willie Smitts had heard of an orangutan sanctuary in the United States that had healthy females that nursed orphan baby orangutans. Willie had a small Cessna plane, which he was afraid would not make it to the States. Jomoh was nine months old when Willie and Jomoh took a plane from Medan to Jakarta, the capital of Indonesia, on the island of Java. A ship took three weeks instead of half a day to get to the States, but it was much cheaper. Jomoh lived in a large carrier and he was nurtured by Willie and Veronica Fernandez, a Mexican intern from Ohio who spent a year at SORO Medan. The ship left Jakarta and first stopped along the east coast of Australia, through the South Pacific, and then to Japan, South Korea and China, and then to Hawaii, and to San Francisco. Jomoh was nine months and twenty-three and a half days old when the ship finally docked at San Francisco. Worldwide Lines, the ship company, gave Willie a discount, decreasing his fare to 5,366,100 rupiah ($420) to only $393.50 (5,000,000 rupiah) because of Willie's work with orangutans. Willie rented a car in San Francisco, with the agreement to drop it off in San Angelo, Texas, near the orangutan sanctuary, the Orangutan Sanctuary of the United States (OSUS). Jomoh saw landscape very different from the orangutan clinic and the forests of Sumatra. He saw California, Arizona, New Mexico, and Texas during two days of driving, 12 hours one day, 11 hours the next. Jomoh was nine months and twenty-six days old (0-9-26 in SORO Medan shorthand) when he arrived at OSUS, five miles northwest of San Angelo, in Edinburgh, Texas. Jomoh bonded with Sanjaya, a 28-year-old female who was still nursing Moonah, her own baby. The "father figure" in Jomoh's life became a male named Manziel, who was 25 years old. Manziel and Sanjaya were both rescues- Manziel a recent rescue from a roadside zoo near Galveston. Manziel had spent seventeen years in one roadside zoo, two years in another. Manziel's cage was only 15' by '15, and Manziel would rock back and forth all day because there was nothing to do. The cage in the other roadside zoo he was at was only 12' by 9.5'. The zoo near Galveston was called the Howell Animal Farm and the other zoo he was at, near Saint Jeans, Texas, on a marsh at the Louisiana state line, was called Gator Country Safari Park. Sanjaya was also rescued, but from a zoo in eastern India, on the coast of Namajoory town. A rescuer brought her on a ship to Hamonds Gardens in Tasmania, where she spent seven weeks being rehabilitated and then taken on a two-week journey by various ships and trains to Texas. Moonah was named after Moon Ah, 33, a female orangutan who had died at the age of 33 of tularemia. Moon Ah was a rescue from Shenzhen, China.

 

@jbnbsn: I do not have the copy of that story saved on the computer, so could I have the story back and change the names? Anyway, sorry to question a moderator but what is wrong with using Chli's real name?