by Shreya Dasgupta for Mongabay
It’s not every day that a wild animal, held captive for years, makes it home.
But two Bornean orangutans (Pongo pygmaeus) — an eight-year-old male called Johnny and a ten-year-old female named Desi — were recently released into a Bornean rainforest, more than four years after being rescued from captivity. Both orangutans were being kept as pets before they were rescued.
Before their release, Johnny, who was rescued in 2011, and Desi, who was rescued in 2012, spent four years being rehabilitated at International Animal Rescue’s (IAR) Orangutan Conservation Centre in Ketapang, West Kalimantan. Both had spent several years confined in a cage, so they had to learn how to climb, forage, make nests and acquire a variety of other survival skills, IAR said in a statement. But the two learned quickly, and were soon able to fend for themselves. The team then moved them the centre’s pre-release island.
This excerpt form a news article appeared in and is courtesy of Mongabay.com and can be viewed in its entirety here.
