Fundraising for Post Release Monitoring in Tabin

Preliminary results demonstrate the need for an interventionist policy of post release management and the importance of employing emerging monitoring technologies that help to facilitate regular contact with all releasees. The requirements of individual animals vary greatly and must be catered to wherever possible to increase long term survivorship. The blanket use of either ‘hard’ or ‘soft’ release strategies across a number of animals is unlikely to be in the best interests of those concerned. Release marks the most challenging aspect of the entire rehabilitation process for great apes; as such, having sufficient boots on the ground to facilitate appropriate intervention where necessary, and working towards establishing some intensive baseline data on post release adaptation, should be considered an ethical requirement of all post release monitoring strategies.

All the female orangutans we are currently following are doing well and gradually making progress toward becoming completely independent. Some are performing better than others, but most generally tend to settle earlier and waste less energy through extensive ranging. Females also show improved diets by consuming more fruits compared to males, who often resort to lower quality fallback foods that are abundant all year round. In May 2013 our efforts in Tabin were rewarded with our first baby born to a released adult female, Otan. Mother and baby Spike continue to thrive as Spike continues into his sixth month. We believe that Otan became pregnant immediately before leaving Sepilok last year. Our lone male in 2012-13, Oscar, struggled. He was one those apes that was just never suitable for independent life without human support. He was very difficult to track and he ranged consistently towards human settlements. His diet was very poor, and on some days he foraged as little as 10%. At the end of 2013 he was thus returned to the care of the Sabah Wildlife Department as life in the wild for Oscar just proved too difficult for him to cope with.

In Borneo it is estimated that 75% of wild orangutans are found in unprotected and often severely degraded areas. It is thus likely that the number of orangutans arriving to rehabilitation centres will continue to rise in excess of the estimated c. 1300 animals currently housed. Orangutan life history is such that infants and juveniles acquire a vast amount of information and skills through observation and practice from their mothers until c. 5-7 years old. These include foraging and food species recognition, seasonal forest productivity cycles, locomotive techniques, nest-building, predator recognition, and forest navigation. Orphaned orangutans residing in rehabilitation facilities were deprived of this crucial developmental period and are largely incapable of fending for themselves in the wild without some form of preparation for future reintroduction back to their natural habitat. Despite this, it is only through a long term programme of thorough post release monitoring that the success of various rehabilitation protocols can be effectively judged. It may be that we need to dramatically re-evaluate the way we train individuals for future reintroduction. Right now, in 2014, we just don’t know as there is not yet enough collected data on reintroduction outcomes to judge our methods.