West Kalimantan, Indonesia: A combined team from the Wildlife Rescue Unit (WRU) of the Natural Resources Conservation Agency (BKSDA Kalbar) and International Animal Rescue (IAR) Indonesia has saved a single adult male orangutan for the second time. He was given the name Boncel when he was first found in the area of Desa Sungai Pelang, Matan Hilir Selatan District, Ketapang Regency, West Kalimantan Province (Indonesian Borneo.)
This time, after Boncel had been captured, he was taken by the rescue team to a more remote part of the forest to ensure he doesn’t leave the forest again and return to the village.
The Head of BKSDA Kalbar, Sadtata Noor Adirahmanta, expressed his appreciation for the quick response to this situation. “The repeated translocation of this orangutan shows that efforts to preserve wild endangered species require the cooperation of all parties. The community can support these efforts by themselves working to repair wildlife habitats and prevent further damage to them,” he said in Pontianak.
Boncel had been translocated from land belonging to residents in the village of Sungai Besar to the surrounding forest in mid-August last year. The translocation was done in order to mitigate conflict with local villagers and take the orangutan back safely to the forest. Satellite imagery showed that the distance from the village to the forest was too far simply to drive the orangutan back on foot. The translocation in August went smoothly.
Although these translocations save individual orangutans’ lives by moving them to safety in the forest, these actions are only a temporary solution.
This was proved when in early November 2020, IAR’s Orangutan Protection Unit (OPU) patrol team again received information regarding the orangutan entering the land belonging to residents in Sungai Pelang Village.
The team immediately set off to verify the report and, on 11 November 2020, they discovered one individual male orangutan eating the villagers’ pineapple plants. After observation and identification, they were able to confirm that this was Boncel, who had previously been rescued from the village of Sungai Besar and translocated by a team from the WRU of BKSDA Kalbar and IAR Indonesia on 18 August.
Consequently, the BKSDA’s WRU team and IAR Indonesia translocated Boncel for a second time. The operation, which took more than seven hours, again went smoothly. IAR’s veterinarian examined Boncel’s condition and stated that the orangutan, who is estimated to be around 30-40 years old, is in good health and was fit to be translocated immediately.
The BKSDA commented that the threat to the survival of the orangutan species has increased since the widespread fires that destroyed vast swathes of its forest habitat in the Ketapang area in 2019. The devastation and deforestation of the land led to many orangutans being left without food and shelter. Orangutans were driven out of their natural habitat after the forest was destroyed and strayed into local villages in search of food, bringing them into contact with local people which resulted in conflict that risked harming both the orangutans and the villagers.