Indonesia evacuates 11 orangutans due to fire on Borneo
Indonesia evacuated 11 orangutans after a severe forest fire reached a protected forest area in Kutai Kartanegara Regency, East Kalimantan province, on the island of Borneo. The animals, which had been rehabilitated in the area, were relocated on Tuesday.
As Anadolu Agency reports, M. Ari Wibawanto, head of the East Kalimantan Natural Resources Conservation Agency, said the orangutans are healthy and safe despite limited facilities for housing them.
Condition of the evacuated animals
After being moved to enclosed evacuation cages in Samboja, the animals showed behavioral changes, including signs of boredom due to the lack of stimulation provided by natural forest cover. A joint medical team is caring for the orangutans to reduce stress and support their cognitive development.
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Separately, an adult male orangutan died in Ketapang Regency last week. The animal had respiratory problems linked to thick smoke from forest fires that had shrouded its habitat for several days. A necropsy found pathological changes in the heart, kidneys and lungs which, specialists suspect, may have been related to smoke exposure.
Firefighting measures
National Disaster Management Agency spokesperson Berton Panjaitan said Indonesia is conducting cloud-seeding operations to increase available rainfall and raise moisture levels in soil and peatlands. This is intended to help suppress forest and land fires and prevent new fire hotspots, including in Kalimantan and Sumatra.
The country is also conducting ground operations, aerial water drops, patrols and cooling of fire hotspots. Active fires, according to Panjaitan, persist in several areas of Sumatra and Kalimantan, although some have already been brought under control. Near Nusantara in East Kalimantan, the Indonesian Air Force deployed a Caracal helicopter equipped with a water-dropping device. In Jambi province, two helicopters are extinguishing a fire that has engulfed six hectares of the Sultan Thaha Saifuddin forest park in the Batang Hari area.
