Indonesia releases 8 orangutans rescued from fires to protected forest

Eight orangutans rescued in recent weeks from blazes that tore through Borneo island have been released into a protected forest, Indonesian authorities and rescuers said on Sunday.

The apes were saved from several locations razed by fires — mostly plantations near their forest homes — in the West Kalimantan province on the Indonesian side of Borneo last month, the forestry ministry and the YIARI wildlife rehabilitation foundation said in a statement.

The orangutans, three mom and baby pairs as well as two male teenagers, were relocated on Friday to the Batu Nyambu Protected Forest in West Kalimantan, a 23,000-hectare reserve with primary and secondary forest cover.

YIARI CEO Karmele Llano Sanchez said relocating the animals to a new location was a “necessary step” when their habitat was no longer safe.

“Protection of habitats will always be a top priority to ensure orangutans continue to have safe forests to live in, but as long as their habitat remains threatened, rescue is one of the best options we can take to help them survive,” Sanchez said.

The reserve was chosen due to availability of food and water sources as well as its connectivity to other forests, said YIARI operational director Argitoe Ranting.

“We want to ensure that rescued orangutans are not simply moved from one place to another, but actually have a chance to survive in their natural habitat,” Argitoe said.

Indonesian authorities and YIARI rescued 46 orangutans from threats of fires between August and October 9, local natural resources agency head Murlan Dameria Pane said.

Orangutans are critically endangered, and around 104,000 orangutans remain in Borneo and Sumatra, down from more than 230,000 a century ago, according to conservation group WWF.

Last month, the International Union for Conservation of Nature warned fires were burning in habitats containing 52 percent of Borneo’s orangutan population.

Indonesia regularly battles wildfires during the dry season, but the fires have intensified this year because of the El Nino weather phenomenon, set to be one of the strongest since comparable records began four decades ago.

Experts have also pointed to slash-and-burn land-clearing practices that have changed the naturally fire-resistant landscape.

The fires have created severe haze locally, with tens of thousands of cases of respiratory illnesses, and also caused regional air pollution spikes in Singapore and Malaysia.

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