Eight orangutans released into Borneo reserve after fires — SkimNews
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- Eight orangutans — three mothers, three daughters, and two adult males — were released into a western Borneo reserve on Friday by International Animal Rescue Indonesia (Yiari) and Indonesia's forestry ministry after their habitats were threatened by wildfires.
- Indonesian authorities rescued 46 orangutans from fires in August and September; wildfires in the region are a normal dry-season occurrence, but this year's were intensified by El Niño, the strongest on record.
- Mama Nopi and her offspring Nopi, Naufal, and Nopan had been surviving in a coconut and rubber plantation before their early-September rescue, with surrounding forestry incinerated and food access cut off; Mama Lifa and child Lifa were found in a patch of acacia trees entirely surrounded by oil palm plantations.
- Borneo and Sumatra host around 104,000 orangutans, down from more than 230,000 a century ago, according to conservation group WWF — a critically endangered population.
- The IUCN warned last month that wildfires were burning in habitats containing 52% of Borneo's orangutan population, with large portions projected to become inhospitable if climate change continues at its current pace.
- The release reserve was selected because it has food and water and connects to other forested areas; Yiari's Argitoe Ranting said rescued orangutans must "actually have a chance to survive in their natural habitat," not just be moved.
Why it matters: This release of eight orangutans addresses only a fraction of the 46 rescued this season, and the IUCN's finding that 52% of Borneo's orangutan population lives in habitats currently burning suggests the rescue pipeline will continue running. The underlying driver — land-clearing that replaces fire-resistant forest with oil palm and acacia plantations — keeps regenerating the threat, since the orangutans' original habitats had been burned and fragmented to the point they could no longer sustain the primates.
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