Eight Bornean orangutans, including three mothers with infants and two adolescent males, have been moved to a safe new home in Batu Nyambu protected forest in West Kalimantan, the Associated Press reports.
The apes had been forced out of their usual range in Ketapang and North Kayong after this year’s dry-season fires cut off their food and forest corridors. The rescue team from YIARI, the Indonesian Nature Rehabilitation Initiative Foundation, found them free of serious injury and released them in early October once they had been checked over.
Batu Nyambu was chosen because it is still largely intact, with plenty of food, water and nesting trees, and it connects to neighbouring forests. Among the group are a mother known as Mama Man and her baby, Man, whom rangers had watched over for months. The charity says its aim is a long-term home where the orangutans can live wild, not simply a move from one place to another.
Source: Associated Press