EARTH DAY 2024: PLANET VS PLASTICS
Every year on April 22, we celebrate Earth Day to honour the planet that is home to us all.
At sun rise, we depart daily on our regular patrols to track our reintroduced orangutans and see how they are getting on. This time our efforts were focused in the area of Gunung Belah and every 100 meters we stopped to check our radio tracking receiver to see if we could detect any of our orangutan signals.
As we drew nearer to the transect close to our habituation enclosure, we detected Casey’s signal. It did not take long for Casey to come down from the tree she was in and try to approach us, so we kept our distance.
From the habituation enclosure transect we headed to Bukit Acul, but did not pick up any other orangutan signal apart from Casey’s. Then we realized that she was following us.
We tried to encourage her to move away, but Casey would still continued to follow us until we reached Gunung Belah. There we did not detect any other orangutan signals either, and decided to take a break for lunch.
Seeing us resting, Casey left after she too found something to eat in the trees.
As the night began to draw in, it was time for us to return to Camp Lesik. We did not encounter any other orangutans that day, but we were glad to see Casey well and have her company during our patrols. Thanks a lot, Casey!