WELCOME TO THE ISLAND!

There are many new lessons our rehabilitated orangutans have to experience before being able to live once again in natural habitat, in the forest. The final step of the whole rehabilitation process before reaching real freedom, takes place on our pre-release islands. There are 3 pre-release islands managed by our team at Nyaru Menteng: Kaja, Bangamat and Palas. These islands are used to accomodate individuals who are considered to have successfully completed their Forest School learning and need to complete several months on our pre-release islands to ensure their skills are completely adequate, before being released into real forest.

Recently, 25 orangutans from the BOS Foundation program at Nyaru Menteng started their new life on two of our pre-release islands, Bangamat and Kaja.

Kaja Island
The transfer of the 25 orangutans was slightly delayed, as it was initially planned to be conducted in 2014. The delay was caused by the frequent heavy smoke which filled the air across Central Kalimantan, and was worsened by the drying Rungan river due to a prolonged dry season.

Bangamat Island
The transfer to both islands took a total of 6 days during 2 separate occasions. The Bangamat transfer was completed between 26-28 February 2015. Subsquently we now have 12 new residents on Bangamat island, namely Elin, Puput, Geragu, Pak Edi, Megi, Mars, Tubagus, Tuhe, Pluto, Coklat, Otong and Pak Hery. Half of them were placed around feeding platform #5, and the other half in a spot around 150 meters from the platform.

The 12 new orangutans have added to the current population on Bangamat and we now have 25 individuals in total here.

Hello, the Newcomers of Kaja!
Having finalised the transportation process of our new pre-release candidates to Bangamat, during 2-4 March 2015, it was time for Taruna, Indi, Nyiwuh, Zoe, Aulin, Ranensi, Bella, Suma, Carmen, Dancow, Nanda, Kay and Kato to move to their new home on Kaja island. The 13 individuals seemed very happy indeed to have been released onto Kaja.

The arrival of the 13 newcomers have brought the Kaja population to 51 individuals. While our third pre-relase island, Palas, is currently supporting another 24 individuals.

Our Technicians from Nyaru Menteng will continue to monitor the progress and skill development of these orangutans. We expected them to keep growing and developing into independent orangutans and be able to survive in the wild.