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Police rescue young orangutan kept as pet in West Kalimantan
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An orangutan named Boncel is pictured after being translocated to the forest from a palm oil plantation, in Ketapang, West Kalimantan province, Indonesia, on August 18. Mempawah Police in West Kalimantan rescued a young female orangutan that had been kept as a pet. (Courtesy of /International Animal Rescue (IAR) Indonesia/Indonesia's Environment and Forestry Ministry (KLHK)/Rudiansyah/Handout via REUTERS)
Police in West Kalimantan have freed a young orangutan that was being kept as a pet by a resident.
According to Mempawah Police chief Adj. Comr. Resky Rizal, the five-year-old female ape was rescued after authorities had received reports of a resident keeping an orangutan in his residence.
"We heard reports that a resident of Tanjung Village in Mempawah Hilir District had been keeping an orangutan as a pet. We visited his house and talked to him. He agreed to hand over the orangutan to us," Resky said in a statement on Wednesday as reported by kompas.com.
He explained that the orangutan was currently kept at the Mempawah Police office and authorities would hand her over to the West Kalimantan Natural Resources Conservation Agency (BKSDA).
"We'll coordinate with the West Kalimantan BKSDA to determine further action," he said.
West Kalimantan BKSDA head Sadtata Noor said most residents knew that orangutans were protected animals and that keeping them as pets violated the law.
"However, many don't know that they should contact the authorities when they encounter an orangutan wandering at the edge of forests. We've seen many cases of residents opting to capture the orangutan instead," Sadtata said.
Sadtata explained that the residents should be informed that capturing and keeping the orangutans they found was not the best option.
"It's better to lead the orangutans back to the forests or contact experts or authorities to deal with the situation," she said.
In early August, the West Kalimantan BKSDA, along with the Central Java BKSDA, rescued two Bornean orangutans from illegal captivity in two locations in Central Java.
One of the orangutans, called Samson, was rescued from an unlicensed "conservation center" located within a tourist park in Kendal regency. The other one, Boboy, was rescued from a private residence in the provincial capital of Semarang.
According to the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF), Bornean orangutans – also known as Pongo pygmaeus – are critically endangered with a population of less than 105,000. (nal)
