Orangutan Previously Held Captive at Park Released Back into the Wild with her Daughter

THINK

May 19

The critically endangered pair were released into the Busang Ecosystem on the island of Borneo.

Mungil enjoying her first taste of freedom after being released to the Busang Ecosystem, May 2022

Two orangutans have been reintroduced into the wild in a rainforest on the island of Borneo, with boats used to transport the critically endangered animals along the Busang River and into their natural habitat.

The mother and daughter pair - eighteen-year-old Ucokwati and eight-year-old Mungil - were released onto Dalwood-Wylie Island located in the Busang Ecosystem, one of the last remaining viable rainforest habitats for orangutans.

Ucokwati had previously been held in captivity at an amusement park before her rescue in 2011. She gave birth to her daughter, Mungil, at the Wildlife Rescue Centre in Yogyakarta on the Indonesian island of Java in 2013.

“We don’t know how long Ucokwati had been held in captivity at the park,” says Hardi Baktiantoro, Field Manager for The Orangutan Project and Founder of the Centre for Orangutan Protection. “As with most orangutans that end up in such places like these, it is highly probable that she was taken from her mother as an infant and sold into the illegal pet trade.”

Ucokwati and Mungil at the Wildlife Rescue Centre, circa 2013

Due to financial difficulties amidst the COVID-19 pandemic, the Wildlife Rescue Centre was forced to close down. This led to the orangutans being relocated to the BORA Rescue & Rehabilitation Centre in East Kalimantan in April 2021.

The great apes were considered eligible for release after completing rehabilitation at the BORA Centre. The pair demonstrated advanced foraging and nest-making skills, as well as a healthy dislike for humans, according to The Orangutan Project.

This is the first in a series of planned orangutan releases back to the wild this year by the Bornean Orangutan Rescue Alliance (BORA) - a joint initiative of the Indonesian Nature Conservation Agency (BKSDA), Centre for Orangutan Protection, and The Orangutan Project.

Orangutans are in danger of extinction, with habitat destruction, climate change, and the illegal wildlife trade the main threats to the species. Wild populations have decreased by 50 percent over the past decade alone.

Hunters are typically paid around $50 to take a baby orangutan from their mother, with the mother orangutan usually shot or beaten to death. The baby is then sold for tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars to zoos or the pet trade.

Meanwhile, human activities, such as intense logging, conversion of forest to palm oil plantations and timber estates, mining, clearing forest for settlements, and road construction, are also decimating the orangutan’s natural habitat.

“We are currently living in the most important decade in the history of our planet for species survival,” said Leif Cocks, founder of The Orangutan Project. “We are facing an extinction crisis unlike anything we have ever seen before due to the ongoing impact of habitat loss and the illegal trade of wildlife that has devastated populations of many animal species and led to an unprecedented loss of biodiversity.

“Unless we can secure and permanently protect fully functional ecosystems of the right type, shape and size within the next ten years, then it is inevitable that orangutans will become extinct in the wild as populations will be too small to be genetically viable.”

Now, this latest release brings renewed hope for the species.

Busang Ecosystem has been identified as one of eight ecosystems that are considered critical for the survival of orangutans. To rehabilitate and release the critically endangered animals, the alliance has been granted approximately 20,000 hectares within the 260,000-hectare Busang Ecosystem.

Two other male orangutans will also be released into the Busang Ecosystem later this month, with at least 2000 orangutans needed for a population to be sustainable.

“The release of orangutans like Ucokwati and Mungil back to the wild gives hope that we can revert the impending extinction crisis,” said Cocks. “But we cannot do it alone. We need more individuals to join us to secure and protect viable rainforest habitat before it is too late.”

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