Shallow Breath

Epilogue

Pete




Pete’s sister collects him from Terminal 1. ‘How’d it all go?’ Maggie asks, once he has thrown his bag in the boot and climbed in beside her.

‘Well, we found Berani, but in general the situation is horrendous,’ Pete replies, kissing her on the cheek. ‘I’m going to speak to people in the different organisations about going out there again, and where the best place is for me. I think I might be of more use nearer to Aceh, rather than at the release centre. Perhaps I can help to lobby the government. Any lasting change is going to have to happen there. One thing’s for sure: we need swift action if the orang-utans are going to have a chance – and I mean today. Tomorrow isn’t good enough any more. Do you realise that, on top of everything else, the region is being assessed for coal mining? We’re fighting a losing battle right now.’

‘Jesus. How do you do it, Pete? How do you keep going, day after day, when you’re aware of all this?’



Pete hesitates only momentarily. ‘You start small. One solid safe haven … that’s all we need to build on. One orang-utan at a time, returned to the wild. Do you know what makes the Jambi release station a prime spot for their reintroduction to the rainforest? Because there used to be orang-utans there, one hundred and thirty years ago, but they died out. So that patch of jungle has everything they need to survive. The place has already lost them once, but now over one hundred and forty orang-utans are swinging through those trees again, four with new babies clinging on to them.’

Maggie smiles. ‘So where can I take you?’

Pete hesitates. ‘Actually, if we head to your house, can I drop you off and borrow the car?’




When Pete gets to the shack, to his disappointment the place is dark and gloomy. Chug waits patiently under the carport. There’s no sign of Desi.

Pete sits on the verandah for an hour or so, staring out at the lacklustre water, then decides he really must get on. As he runs down the steps, he’s compelled to turn around. All he sees at first is the empty seat facing the ocean, but, next to it, something is glinting from the door handle.

He climbs back up, astonished to find Desi’s pearl necklace. He stares at the little dolphin, its body curled around the small white globe. Realising Maya will be thrilled, he decides not to leave it there, and puts it inside the zip pocket of his jacket for safekeeping. As he walks away, he tries Maya’s mobile, but she doesn’t pick up. He debates going up to Lovelock Bay to find her, but there are other things he needs to get done first.

He pushes the speed limit all the way back to the city, wanting to make sure he reaches the zoo before it closes. He’s got a stack of paperwork to hand over concerning Berani. The staff on the front desk radio his arrival to the orang-utan keepers, and he hurries through the park, to the gate that leads behind the scenes.

As he approaches the door to the kitchens, Wendy is waiting for him, ‘Hello, stranger,’ she says. ‘I’m about to bring Indah and Langka in for the night. Do you want to come and say hi?’

He follows her through to a small room, where she unlocks the little barred gate. Within seconds, Indah swings inside, with Langka clutching on to her mother.

Pete kneels down as Indah spots him and slowly approaches.

‘Hey, Indah,’ he says, savouring every moment of being this close to her again. ‘I’m pleased to report that Berani is safe and well, and doing great.’

Indah studies him with her gentle brown eyes. How much he would give to know what she sees. But then, to his surprise, she swings her baby in front of her. And he meets little Langka’s steadfast gaze, as Indah solemnly places her daughter’s precious fingers across his palm.





Author’s Note

Blending Fact with Fiction




While the characters and the plot of Shallow Breath are entirely fictional, the backdrop of the book is grounded in real places, events and stories. Atlantis Marine Park was a top tourist attraction for roughly a decade and is well remembered by Perth residents. The ruins are still there today, and in the middle of them King Neptune can be found staring fixedly out to sea. The seven dolphins who were the stars of the park – Frodo, Rajah, Nero, Mila, Rani, Lulu and Karleen – were much-loved during their time at Two Rocks, and the extensive efforts at successfully releasing them and their offspring were considered groundbreaking, despite mixed results. The three who were recaptured (Rajah, Mila and one of the juveniles, Echo) were moved to the aquarium at Hillarys, where, sadly, they were poisoned in 1996. Their deaths remain a mystery, and they are commemorated by a bronze statue and community wishing well at Hillarys boat harbour.



Monkey Mia is a world-renowned spot roughly 800 kilometres north of Perth, where the dolphins come into the shoreline each day of their own accord to be given a small ration of fish and meet visitors. Scientific research at Monkey Mia took off in the 1980s and continues to this day. Nicky the dolphin has been visiting almost every day since she was born (a year before I was) in 1975 and is now considered a dolphin of advanced years. The careful and thoughtful management of tourism at Monkey Mia has, so far, shown that it is possible to successfully sustain human-dolphin interaction.

The Zambian elephant population dropped alarmingly due to poaching in the seventies and eighties, although it is hard to find reliable figures. Elephant poaching is currently on the increase in various African countries, and poachers are now using high-tech weaponry to decimate populations. An msnbc news article in May 2012 reported that tens of thousands of elephants were estimated to have been killed in 2011 for their tusks, largely due to increased Asian demand for ornaments and traditional medicine. Without another international outcry, elephants may soon, once again, be heading towards extinction.

The natural wonders of the Galapagos have not escaped the attentions of poachers either. Longlines are regularly set illegally inside park zones, which target sharks for the shark-finning industry. As well as decimating shark populations, their by-catch also puts other unique species at risk. In countries where shark fins are highly prized, the most valuable is the biggest one, which belongs to the whale shark.

Indah, Langka and Berani are a fictitious orang-utan family, but their story is based on the groundbreaking efforts underway at Perth Zoo, which has already seen two orang-utans relocated to the Sumatran jungle. I was assisted in researching this storyline by Leif Cocks, Curator of Exotics at Perth Zoo, and founder of The Orangutan Project (www.orangutan.org.au). The last few lines of Shallow Breath echo one of Leif’s moving encounters with these great apes, as recounted in his book Orangutans and their Battle for Survival. Eighty per cent of the orang-utans’ rainforest has been destroyed in the past twenty years, and without immediate action it is predicted that both Bornean and Sumatran orang-utans, with whom humans share 97 per cent of their DNA, will go extinct within the next decade.

Half Moon Bay is a small town on the west coast of America, and I would love to go whale-watching there one day. A short drive north is San Francisco, where, in 1985, Humphrey the humpback really did swim down the river, before he was serenaded back out to freedom using the songs of his own kind.

In contrast, every day between September and March, any dolphins found swimming, foraging, leaping or playing too close to Taiji, on the east coast of Japan, are hounded into the merciless waters of the Cove. After a few are picked for the lucrative captive trade, the rest are bludgeoned and butchered under tarps. We only know about this because of small groups of determined people from Save Japan Dolphins, Sea Shepherd, the filmmakers of The Cove and other independent demonstrators, who all risk their freedom to draw attention to what is happening. I stood with a number of these people for just one morning on the cliff-tops of Taiji, and, thankfully, it was a day where the boats returned empty-handed. These protestors are courageous individuals who stare unflinchingly at suffering while their hearts are breaking, so they can rally the cry for change before it is too late. It is because of them, and those like them the world over, that this book has been written.