Indonesia: Baby orangutan born at Safari Lagoi Bintan

By Hayati Nupus

JAKARTA (AA) – A baby Bornean orangutan (Pongo pygmaeus) was born in Safari Lagoi Bintan, located in Indonesia’s Riau Islands province.

Wiratno, the director general of Natural Resources and Ecosystems Conservation in Ministry of Environment and Forestry, said the baby born on Oct. 1 at 3.00 p.m. local time (0800 GMT) is male and named after its place of Birth, Bintan.

“Bintan was born from a 15-year-old father, named Kapuas, and a 10-year-old-mother, named Barito. Both were repatriated from Thailand,” said Wiratno in a press release on Wednesday night.

He said the Indonesian government brought back illegally smuggled orangutans and returned them to their habitat in the forest or handed them to conservation agencies.

With the birth of Bintan, Wiratno said, the total number of orangutans at Bintan’s Safari Lagoi has reached five — including three Bornean orangutans and two Sumatran orangutans.

Wiratno noted that Indonesia has three species of orangutans: Sumatra, Tapanuli and Borneo.

In 2016, Orangutan Population and Habitat Viability Assessment (PHVA) estimated that there were only 14,630 Sumatran orangutans, 57,350 Bornean orangutans — most of which were living outside conservation areas –, and 800 Tapanuli orangutans — who are living in three separate populations in the Batang Toru forest.

From 2012 to 2017, Wiratno said, the government rescued more than 250 Bornean orangutans and moved them to the orangutan rescue center.

Up to December 2017, the government has released 726 orangutans to their habitat, and 267 of them are Sumatran orangutans.

Bintan’s Safari Lagoi is not only the habitat for orangutans, but also other animals such as Bayan Parrot (Lorius roratus), Spotted Deer (Axis axis), Pangolin (Manis javanica), Sumatran Elephants (Elephas maximus), and Komodo (Varanus komodoensis).

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