Libero.id - Brilio.net/en - The giant fires ravaging Borneo and Sumatra in recent years have grabbed headlines around the world. Thousands of hectares of peat forest were lost, and with them the habitat of hundreds of species, including orangutans.
West Kalimantan in Indonesian Borneo is one of the worst-hit areas. It is there that International Animal Rescue opened a rehabilitation center for rescued orangutans.
IAR's goal is to help the intelligent and powerful animals readapt to their original way of life and eventually set them free once more.
The animals rescued are too young to survive on their own or have lived their whole life in captivity, so are unable to sustain themselves in the wild. So, before relocating them in safe areas of protected forest, IAR puts them through an innovative system so they can learn how to cope on the outside.
In the middle of the jungle, wide enclosed plots of land have been fixed up by the IAR to act as "classrooms" for the primates. There, orangutans learn how to nest, find their own food and how to avoid and defend against predators. Once they pass the “final exam”, a team of vets and IAR workers evaluate if the animal is ready to go back to the jungle or not.
This initiative has taken on extra importance since the publishing of a report by the International Union for Conservation of Nature, which listed the orangutan as Critically Endangered – just one step above Extinct in the Wild. The report says that if things continue as they are, orangutans will die out in the wild within 50 years.
Opini