Indonesia rescues starved orangutan from fires: Officials

JAKARTA – A female orangutan which was likely starving was evacuated on Oct 14 from an area razed by fire on the Indonesian island of Borneo, officials said, as the country rescues hundreds of animals affected by the blazes.Indonesia has for weeks struggled to control fires that have razed parts of Sumatra, Borneo and the Papua islands, sending choking smog wafting across the border to Malaysia and Singapore.The orangutan was spotted in a burnt forest area in Central Kalimantan province on the Indonesian side of Borneo, local natural resources agency chief Muriansyah told reporters on Oct 14.“We strongly suspect that the orangutan was looking for food and then it was seen by residents, who then reported it to officials,” said Muriansyah who, like many Indonesians, goes by one name.The animal, estimated to be around 20 years old, was transferred to an agency facility.The great ape was anaesthetised so it could be safely captured, with rescuers using a net to collect the sleepy animal from atop a tree, according to an AFP reporter on the scene.Preliminary examinations showed the female orangutan was not injured and did not appear to be suffering from respiratory problems, said Ichlasul Khaerul, a medical staffer with Orangutan Foundation International.However, “seen from her abdominal circumference, probably the orangutan, Ira, was in the state of starvation”, Ichlasul said.Indonesia has rescued 232 wild animals as of Oct 8, including 76 proboscis monkeys and 71 orangutans in Borneo, a forestry ministry spokesman said on Oct 14.Orangutans are critically endangered.Around 104,000 remain in Borneo and Sumatra, down from more than 230,000 a century ago, according to conservation group World Wide Fund for Nature.In September, the International Union for Conservation of Nature warned that fires were burning in habitats containing 52 per cent of Borneo’s orangutan population. AFP