Dr Ating Foundation

Dr Ating Foundation Through Dr. Ating Foundation, Ating Solihin MD and his wife Meidy carry out conservation protecting wildlife (babirusa, macaque. tarsier, etc.) Indonesia.

of Wallacea Ecoregion. Due to limited fund, effort restricted on Malenge Island, Togeans, Sulawesi. Dr Ating Foundation's main purpose is to help dr Ating and his team to build a well functioning health and conservation organization in the Lore Lindu National Park, Sulawesi, Indonesia.

23/08/2026

To lower their risk of being trapped and killed in the coconut groves or crop gardens, we provide food to macaques and babirusas of Malenge Island. As our coconut trees have enough fruits now, we only spend some money for paying a climber three times a year. But we have to spend USD 100-150 per month on bananas, papaws, sweet potatoes, and water cress for the both of them. That is a significant amount for us because we don't have job and fund.
Through my Facebook posts, honestly, I have tried to touch the readers--up to 300K viewers/post--to help us save these rare and wonderful creatures, but fewer than five so far being touched by sending us some money. Surprisingly the help comes not from our fellow primate around the world but from the tiny primates living in the forest behind our home.
This year we started to walk tourists who want to see tarsier (active at night, eat no fruit, and only 250 grams or lighter, which makes it smallest primate in Asia) in the forest at night. In return, they give us USD 17, some of them give more, per person. Depending on the season, the money has relieved part of our financial burden on protecting wildlife. Thanks Yoda--the name we call our tarsiers--for helping your fellow forest dwellers and sorry for bothering you for a few minutes in a week.

18/08/2026

Looking at the macaque babies and young children with their mothers always makes us laugh. They are so wonderful and the bonds between mother and baby so admirable. And, like human, macaque love kissing babies, even their young children do so.
To us this scene is a wonder that blowing away our fear against cruel macaque poachers, but still the fate of Dian Fossey haunts me, sometimes.
"... After the 1977 killing of her favorite gorilla, Digit, and the deaths of some of the animals she studied most, Fossey devoted less of her time to scientific research and more to protecting the gorillas. Her direct tactics escalated tensions, and she was murdered in her cabin at Karisoke on December 26, 1985. Although Fossey's American research assistant was convicted in absentia, there is no consensus as to who killed her. Fossey was buried beside Digit in the gorilla graveyard she constructed at Karisoke." Wikipedia
We still don't understand why some locals still hunt macaques even though the macaques do not do any harm to them or their coconut groves. For instance, two days ago one of them brought four big dogs to our bay and those dogs barked at and chased the Hanoman troop. Soon Meidy and I ran after them, screaming along the way. It was not easy doing so because the hills steep and dense with shrub, some thorny, with only flipflop under our soles. However, a few minutes later the man vanished with his dogs. And yesterday we counted the macaques in the troop and were relieved that all safe.

06/08/2026

"What are we going to do with him?" Meidy could not answer my question. We agreed that we did not want another macaque in our house because the house is a dangerous place for him and he would cost us a lot from his breaking everything apart. And we surely did not want to put him in an enclosure. "I will take him to the Matahari by kayak."
The Matahari Wildlife Sanctuary is the land we bought for saving the wildlife of Malenge Island from the cruelty of human beings. It is 800 meters away from our current house, which is too far for a little macaque to return to our home by himself. And, except for an unfinished house, nothing valuable David can break over there. "I will bring bananas every day until he is able to find his own food." But I know that there will be days I cannot do it due to rough sea.
While we discussed about what to do, Meidy gave bananas to David and he ate three of them. He must have been starving because the killer of his mother only fed him coconut he did not like. And he drank plenty of water. "He drank his own urine," said Meidy. And then we heard the calls of macaques.
"Why don't we join him to the troop." For a while I said nothing over Meidy's idea. I remembered Janey. She refused to join the troop, just playing around us while we were spreading bananas to the macaques. Sometimes she approached some little macaques coming close to us, but they ignored her. When adult macaques came close, Janey ran toward us.
"OK, let's try."
While we were spreading bananas and coconuts to the troop, David clang to Meidy's bosom. "He is pooing," Meidy said. David was scared. Defecating is the fear reaction from a young macaque. Janey did this when we clipped her nails.
When all foods spread, Meidy held David and clang him to the banana tree behind her, but he refused to release Meidy's hands. In the meantime the troop started to sound threatening calls, which I think frightened David and caused him to run away. Within a few seconds everything in chaos: Meidy screamed and ran after the troop chasing David. And I followed them cutting the path of the raiding the troop.
I did not see David after the troop left and was sure the troop did not get him because they still tried to pass me for a while before leaving. To make sure he was not injured lying on the ground, I swept the yard, hills and forest around our home for three days. But David disappeared up till now.
Whenever I remember David, I felt a stabbing pain in my heart. A little macaque living alone in the forest with hardly any food and water ( drought now) and under the threats from a hostile macaque troop during the day and a gigantic python during the night. I hope, however slim the chance is, David find the way to his own troop. Let Nature decides on his fate. At least he has escaped from the worst: the prisoner of human beings.

04/08/2026

Macaque mother carries her baby till one year old. Afterward the young macaque is able to follow the troop moving around independently. But I believe there is still bond between mother and child for a few years after.
When the local man released the end of the string that was attached around the waist of David--from Attenborough, Meidy named him--instead of running away, he jumped and hugged Meidy's bosom tightly. How did this 3-year old macaque believe she would be safe in the bosom of someone's he had never met before? Meidy is a human being, the species who had just killed his mother and other macaques and tortured him for a few days or weeks. It's probably the love signal Meidy had transmitted toward him. Nobody knows for sure because we will not be able to understand macaque's thought and emotion fully.

03/08/2026

It's hard for me not to be furious at human beings, not to be misanthropic--disliking human--after rescuing so many wonderful wildlife that had been caught and tortured by people. Janey was rescued in 2023 and passed away last January. Today we rescued another macaque, about Janey's age had she been still alive. Don't the killers see that the frightened eyes of the young macaques are very similar to the eyes of their children in the same state?

28/07/2026

Very little is known about the behavior of babirusas in the wild. Though they have come to our home regularly for seven years, we cannot say we know them well. For example, seeing Baru has lost both of his upper tusks, the fight of babirusas in the forest must not be as friendly as in our yard. There is no referee in the forest if the fight too rough--I stop this by pouring a bucket water at them.

25/07/2026

We were having lunch when something struck the window of our dining room. And I saw something drop on the ground a split second afterward. To confirm my guess, I got up and looked outside. Yes, there was a bird perching on a branch about 40 cm above the ground. "Bird!" I said to Meidy.
The bird flew on seeing Meidy coming. "I thought it fell on the ground."
"Yes, one did here." And she picked it up. "Black Sunbird." Though Meidy is good now in identifying birds around us, I still wanted to check her new skill. Merlin application in my cellphone confirmed her skill is solid. It was male Black Sunbird, a very beautful little bird we see every day around our house.
Around fifteen minutes later I heard Meidy scream with joy, "It is flying!" It is the 8th species of birds we rescued. Previously were tern, kite, fruit dove (adult and chick), kingfishers (2 spp), and pitta.

24/07/2026

Meidy and I are always excited whenever we see a newborn in Hanoman Troop and this week we saw three newborns at once. As the Troop is now safe from the killing by human beings--we monitor their territory closely--their population is expected to increase fast. But it is not.
Over four years the population has been up and down between 32 and 41 individuals The s*x ratio male:female is around 1:2 because, for an unknown reason, the predator reticulated pythons prefer killing adult males. Probably they are the ones who defend the troop during the attack because we noticed the former alpha male and his two deputies disappeared in the last two years.
Nevertheless, the chance of survival of our Hanoman Troop is much higher than the troop in the Matahari Wildlife Sanctuary, whose present population is under 10. We hope they still exist when we move there because we might be able to stop the killings by human beings in the coconut groves at the back of the Sanctuary, if we have enough fund to buy those groves.

22/07/2026

As s*xual harrasment rate varies among cultural groups, we assume it is a by-product of cultural development. The footage taken by Meidy shows it is not. It might be a by-product of evolutionary development of our hand.
*xualharassment

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