Kiwi woman helping orphaned elephants
A Lower Hutt woman is eager to make sure elephants at a burnt wildlife sanctuary are ok.
Poachers set Trusan Kinabatangan Forest Reserve and Lower Kinabatangan Wildlife Sanctuary in Borneo on fire on July 22.
‘‘The sooner I get out there and see what happens on the ground the better,’’ Debbie Mair said.
She had already been planning to go back to see if a trial of orphaned elephants being fed on New Zealand cow milk was successful.
The Rotarian first meet the two elephants Jimbo and Tun Tan two years ago when she was representing the Rotary Action Group for Endangered Species.
Since then she has spent the past 18 months convincing Fonterra NZ to get involved in producing a milk powder especially for the elephants.
‘‘I spent $3000 US [$4250 NZ] when I was over there buying up all of the local milk powder for the elephants,’’ she said.
‘‘[Fonterra] has been fantastic and given me some milk powder to run a six week trial.’’
While in Borneo she bonded with the six-month and ninemonth-old elephants. She will meet them again when she returns on July 29.
This trip to will be to collate the trial data to see if it was a success.
If it was, it would save the organisation that was now looking after 16 orphaned elephants, whose parents were shot for raiding palm oil plantations because they were starving, between $80,000 and $100,000 per year on milk powder.
Fonterra global sponsorship manager Kane Simcock said it would also be a great opportunity for the dairy cooperative to offer the organisation ’’competitive pricing while being involved in a great conservation project’’.
‘‘If the trial is successful we will discuss a supply agreement with Rotary to purchase larger amounts of product for their ongoing work,’’ he said.
Mair originally went to Borneo to adopt an orangutan and look at the damage the palm oil industry was doing.
The former policewoman from Edinburgh was involved in three international Rotary projects.
Last year with Rotary she looked at how to end Ethiopia’s fatal drought.