Ten orangutans were released back into the wild on the Indonesian part of the island of Borneo, with helicopters used to transport the great apes in critical danger to the depths of the forest, coming from the rehabilitation centers.
Borneo’s orangutans were all in captivity before being rescued. They include Nenuah, a 19-year-old woman who was repatriated from Thailand, according to the Borneo Orangutan Survival Foundation (BOSF).
In total, five men, a mother with two babies and two other women were released with the help of Indonesian conservation agencies.
“Using a helicopter is the best way to transport orangutans during the pandemic,” said Denny Kurniawan, the BOSF program manager, noting that it would take three days of driving to reach a fall area, increasing the risk of Covid-19 transmission.
Orangutans and other monkeys are known to be susceptible to human respiratory diseases, so veterinarians put on protective clothing and masks during final medical examinations.
“Efforts to help stem the spread of the Covid-19 virus have hampered many conservation-related activities,” said Handi Nasoka, acting head of the central Kalimantan conservation agency.
The long periods spent in captivity mean that rehabilitation has been a slow process for some of the other orangutans that arrived with Nenuah in 2006, the foundation said in a statement, adding that most monkeys found it difficult to develop the skills needed to defend for themselves in the jungle.
There are only about 100,000 Borneo orangutans left in the wild, according to the World Wildlife Fund, because more than half the population has been depleted in the past 60 years.
They suffered from poaching, as well as habitat destruction due to large-scale logging and replacement of forests with cash crops, such as palm oil.