In nearly 50 years, hundreds of orangutans have been rescued and reintroduced into the wild. Cubs arrive and leave as adults, to live in the forest.
The Sepilok Orangutan Rehabilitation Centre is located on the edge of the Kabili Sepilok Forest Reserve, in the state of Sabah, Malaysia. Since 1964, young orangutans (Pongo pygmaeus) that are orphaned as a result of the hunting of adult specimens or the destruction of their natural habitat, the forest, have been rescued, treated and rehabilitated here.
As you approach the rescue centre, the vegetation begins to grow imposing and the forest reveals itself in all its magnificence. After all, we are on the edge of Borneo, one of the planet's green lungs. The canopies soar dozens upon dozens of metres and from a distance they seem to merge into a green wall that appears impenetrable. It is here that the reserve stands, today home to between 60 and 80 orangutans reintroduced into the wild after a period of rehabilitation. Part of it is open to the public. Within the reserve's 43 square kilometres, macaques, proboscis monkeys and sun bears also roam. You can even hear a young elephant trumpeting.
The first encounter with a specimen seen and studied only in books leaves you speechless, dazed. The face, the movements, the looks are extremely similar to those of a human being, and when a female of about two years kicks out because she does not want to return to the area set aside for her, it feels like watching your own child protesting because they do not want to come back inside. What is certain is that, from an evolutionary and biological standpoint too, these primates are closely related to Homo sapiens. At present there are around twenty young specimens, some of them one or two years old. "We accept the youngest specimens here because the older ones are often no longer recoverable," explains Pakee Raj, 25, one of the two vets at the centre.
"Most of them arrive at this centre because their mother is killed or because she abandons them, no longer able to care for them." Young orangutans, in fact, live with their mother until the age of eight, learning to find food, build nests and climb the treetops. Despite the orangutan being a protected species, "the young are still captured and tamed as pets and kept in the home," Pakee continues. And so, here the centre's volunteers and vets teach the youngest ones to survive in the forest, to climb, to find food, in a lengthy process during which they rediscover their lost bond with the forest.
"We put them in groups of 4–5 specimens where the older ones teach the younger ones," the vet explains. And you can see this during feeding time: a young specimen clings to an older one that is trying to grab a piece of fruit. The larger one pushes it away, but then passes it part of the "rations," moving off for good to "eat lunch" in peace. "Once the rehabilitation process, which lasts up to eight years, is complete, we begin with a first reintroduction at around 45 kilometres away, before finally releasing them into the wild at more than a few hundred kilometres," the vet points out.
In recent years, fewer and fewer specimens have been arriving at the centre, a sign that conservation policies on one hand, and education and awareness-raising efforts, together with a tightening of the law by the Malaysian government on the other, appear to be working. Since the centre opened, hundreds of specimens have returned to the forest, to their natural environment. "Some even come back. But only to feast alongside the other orangutans," Pakee concludes.