Last week, the Borneo Orangutan Survival (BOS) Foundation teamed up with the Central Kalimantan Natural Resources Conservation Agency (BKSDA), and the Bukit Baka Bukit Raya National Park (TNBBBR) Authority to release three orangutans from the Nyaru Menteng Orangutan Rehabilitation Centre to the forests of the TNBBBR in Katingan Regency, Central Kalimantan.
In this latest release, two male orangutans (Batola and Unyu) and one female (Paduran) got their chance to return to the wild. As per BOS Foundation protocol, the Nyaru Menteng medical team carried out the sedation process and a final check-up on all three orangutans at the quarantine complex prior to departure. The release team then departed from Nyaru Menteng around 6 p.m. on Monday, 17 February.
After several hours of travel through both sunshine and rain, the team finally arrived at the Bemban watershed in the heart of the national park. Batola, Unyu, and Paduran rushed out of their transport cages as soon as they were opened to climb up the nearest trees.
A special event was featured in this particular release: the inauguration of our new orangutan monitoring camp in the Bemban watershed. The new camp is named “Lewun Kahio” - meaning ‘orangutan home village’ in the local Dayak language - and was inaugurated by the Director of Biodiversity Conservation of the Ministry of Environment and Forestry (KKH-KLHK), Mrs. Indra Eksploitasia, who also joined the orangutan release and opened one of the transport cages.
Upon arrival at the location, guests and KLHK officials were greeted with a “pasang lawung” ritual, involving the use of traditional Dayak headgear. The inauguration itself began with “tampung tawar”, a traditional Dayak ritual carried to help keep participants safe from harm and bad luck.
Tampung tawar
Potong pantan
Lewun Kahio camp under construction
Lewun Kahio camp upon completionÂ
Photo group
Next, a ritual called “potong pantan”, or, 'cutting all obstacles', was performed with the aim of removing any obstacles that might impede our work. This ritual officially marked the inauguration of Lewun Kahio camp.
The inauguration ended with the signing of a plaque by the director of KKH-KLHK, the head of the TNBBBR Authority, the head of the Central Kalimantan BKSDA, and the CEO of the BOS Foundation. Lewun Kahio was then officially ready for use!
Previously, Camp Lewun Kahio was nothing more than a temporary tent structure known as a ‘flying camp’. Thanks to the support of many parties, we successfully built the permanent wooden camp structure that stands there today.
Since the first release in the Bemban watershed was conducted in August 2016, a total of 134 orangutans have been released there. Our Post-Release Monitoring (PRM) team has worked hard to observe and collect data on the orangutans released in this forest.
Following the inauguration of new Camp Lewun Kahio, the Director of KKH-KLHK said; “I sincerely hope the existence of this new monitoring camp will help boost morale and bolster team performance.”
Best wishes to our hard-working PRM team – we hope you like your new camp!
The BOS Foundation, together with the KLHK and the BKSDA of Central Kalimantan will soon conduct the 44th orangutan release from the Nyaru Menteng Rehabilitation Centre to the Bukit Baka Bukit Raya National Park (TNBBBR).
Every year on April 22, we celebrate Earth Day to honour the planet that is home to us all.
It was a usual day at the Nyaru Menteng forest school, where young orangutans were learning from one another while their human surrogate mothers looked on from below.
