EMERGENCY RESCUES FROM THE DEVASTATING FIRES

The ongoing forest fires occurring in Central Kalimantan continue to threaten the lives of both humans and wildlife. Within the last month alone, the BOS Foundation Nyaru Menteng Orangutan Rehabilitation Centre have rescued 2 orangutans within a week of each other, both displaced by fire.

On 21st September 2015, a team from Nyaru Menteng in collaboration with BKSDA confiscated a 4-month old male orangutan, weighing only 1.5 kgs, from a local settler in the Hiang Bana transmigration area, Katingan Regency.

The person claimed he had found the young orangutan somewhere on the outskirts of the burning forest, alone. This is highly unlikely as a mother orangutan would never leave her tiny infant alone. He took care of the baby for a couple of days before the team from the Central Kalimantan BKSDA and Nyaru Menteng were alerted and came to the rescue. When we arrived, the poor baby was already weak and under nourished.

At Nyaru Menteng, the baby boy we named Napri quickly received treatment and started the quarantine and recovery process so we could further review the status of his health.

Only a week later, the Nyaru Menteng team received another report from BKSDA of a sighting of an individual wild orangutan in the town of Sampit, East Kotawaringin Regency. Some residents called and informed us that the orangutan had been there for about 4 days and requested that we help the individual.

Nyaru Menteng quickly dispatched a team to join the Central Kalimantan BKSDA team and head for Sampit. The trip took us 4 hours and on arrival in Sampit, we quickly established coordination with the local BKSDA who briefed us on the situation.

Upon arrival at the location, we spotted a reddish shape moving in a tree top. The tree was about only 5 meters away from the nearest house. The orangutan was apparently trying to survive in a small area of remaining forest that was less than a hectare in size, within a construction site on the edge of Sampit town. On the other side, we saw a patch of peatland still-smouldering, from recent fires. We suspected that the orangutan had entered the settlement area and was subsequently trapped by the fire.

The poor orangutan was stressed and became more frightened when onlookers approached to observe our evacuation process. She kept on moving around the very limited patch of forest producing kiss squeaks to show her unhappiness at human presence. It took us nearly 2 hours to finally sedate and move her to the local BKSDA post in Sampit.

Initial observations by vet Lia Kristina revealed that the female orangutan was around 11 years old and was very hungry.

However, assessing her physical condition, maturity and clear wild behaviour, we decided that this female orangutan should be instantly translocated to a safe area of forest.

We then handed her over to the Chief of BKSDA posted in Sampit, and they are making arrangements to transport her to Suaka Margasatwa (wildlife reserve) Lamandau.

According to Muriansyah, Chief of the BKSDA post in Sampit, they were currently processing at least 4 reports that required further verification, of orangutans entering human settlements. This is not a surprise given the significant forest and land fires in the Sampit area and all across Central Kalimantan.  As habitat is lost to fire, orangutans simply have no alternative but to move into areas close to humans in search of food and at least temporary safety from fire.

Sadly this is what happens when forest fires in Kalimantan occur. Not only humans suffer; wild animals like orangutans also lose their homes and often their lives. We were lucky to be able to save these two orangutans; inevitably there will be many more who didn’t manage to survive.