Fears over poaching threat as rare albino orangutan released Indonesia
Fears have arisen for the world’s only known albino orangutan, Alba, who has been released into a protected forest more than a year after being discovered bloodied and emaciated in a remote Indonesian village.
The blue-eyed, white-haired great ape is ‘‘very strong’’ after undergoing intensive rehabilitation with the Borneo Orangutan Survival Foundation, which nursed her back to health after finding her caged and weighing just 8kg in April 2017.
But experts are concerned that Alba’s unique genetic condition could see her fall victim to poachers on an island where hunting and habitat loss have accounted for the deaths of nearly 150,000 orangutans in just 16 years.
Poaching is easy money in a country where roughly 26 million people live below the poverty line. Orangutans fetch several hundred dollars in local markets. Mothers are often poached for their babies, which are then sold on the black market as pets. Other orangutans are simply hunted for their meat or killed for being ‘‘pests’’.
Alba was originally due to be released on to a man-made island to accommodate health problems related to her albinism, including poor eyesight and hearing and the potential for skin cancer. But government conservationists agreed instead to release her into the protected Bukit Baka Bukit Raya national park, where she will be electronically tracked and monitored by a medical team.
Park officials said they aimed to keep Alba safe from poachers and loggers but admitted there weren’t enough officers to patrol the entire habitat.
The Bornean orangutan is considered critically endangered and has lost more than 55 per cent of its natural habitat in the past two decades alone.