MUMMY, PLEASE DON’T DIE
FILIAL love can be fierce and fearless, and this baby orang-utan shows both qualities as he clings to his mother in silent desperation. He cradles her breast, presses his cheek close to her heart and looks up to the heavens, as if in prayer.
For she is unconscious, emaciated and close to death.
Her bones jut out, her hair is scrubby and dirty. She hasn’t eaten properly for months and has been unable to produce vital milk for her baby. She lies sprawled, spent and helpless on the forest floor.
Animal rescue workers try to take her pulse and check her heartbeat but still he won’t leave her — taking up a position across her chest, arms wide, spread- eagled across her, protecting her.
A terrible journey has bought mother and baby to this point.
Last year, wildfires in West Borneo turned their habitat to smouldering ashes. They had to flee for their lives and their food and shelter was gone.
Forest fires have long been a problem in Borneo, but those of 2015 were worse than ever, decimating more than 8,000 square miles of land, killing 21 people, ruining crops and causing serious respiratory problems for man and beast alike.
For this pair, there was insufficient food for months. Starving, they raided villagers’ crops until farmers called International Animal Rescue.
The team found them nesting in a tree. She was weak, barely conscious and needed urgent medical treatment but refused to be parted from her baby. It took three tranquilliser darts before she loosened her grip on the tree and landed in the nets below, her son clinging on for dear life — until the vets gently prised his hands off her and lifted them both to safety.
The Bornean orang-utan population has halved over the past 60 years. They are among the most intelligent primates in the world but have been hunted for ‘bush meat’ and traditional medicines, while their habitat has been wiped out by forest fires and logging. Now, they are classed as an endangered species.
This mother and baby were lucky. They were taken to the Orang-utan Rehabilitation Centre in Ketapang, where they were cared for round the clock. Today, just weeks after these pictures were taken, the mother, nicknamed Mama Nam, is again producing milk for her child, Baby Nam.
Soon both will be well enough to be released into a protected area of forest where food is plentiful.
But many hundreds more will not have been so fortunate.
Karmele Llano Sanchez, of International Animal Rescue in Indonesia, says: ‘It is heartbreaking to see wild orang-utans in this extreme state of starvation, and we are expecting a long drought season again this year as a result of El Nino, with the risk of more forest fires to come.
‘We need all the help and support we can muster if we are going to save the lives of more orang-utans in the coming months.’