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View all search resultsRepatriated orangutans need 'years of' rehab before release: Conservation group
It will be years before the orangutans, approximately a year old, are ready to go back into the wild, according to the head of the conservation group reponsible for their rehabilitation.
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A female Tapanuli orangutan (‘Pongo tapanuliensis’) looks out of an enclosure at Kualanamu International Airport in Deli Serdang regency, North Sumatra, on Dec. 24, 2025, after her return from Thailand, where she had been taken by smugglers. (Courtesy of North Sumatra BKSDA/-)
T
he four orangutans that recently returned to Indonesia from Thailand on Wednesday will need years of rehabilitation before they can be released back into the wild, according to the North Sumatra Natural Resources Conservation Agency (BKSDA), which received the critically endangered animals at the cargo terminal of Kualanamu International Airport in Deli Serdang.
The orangutans spent one night transiting in Jakarta before they were flown back to North Sumatra, from where they had been smuggled to Thailand.
“The repatriated orangutans are still babies, around a year old,” Novita Kusuma Wardani, head of BKSDA North Sumatra, said on Dec. 24 after receiving the orangutans at Kualanamu airport.
Orangutans stay with their mothers for around eight years, during which time the adult female will have no other offspring. “It has the longest birth interval of any land mammal, with one of the longest periods of infant dependency,” according to the Orang Utan Republik Foundation.
Asked when the orangutans might be released, Novita said this would depend on their progress during rehabilitation.
“Once they are ready, we will immediately release them [back to] their natural habitat,” she said, adding that the four orangutan babies had been placed at the Sumatra Rescue Alliance’s rehabilitation center in Langkat regency.
Executive director Syafrizaldi of the Orangutan Information Center, which manages the Sumatra Rescue Alliance, confirmed that the four orangutans had started rehabilitation at the Langkat center, and that the process would continue until they were ready to be released.
