Orangutan Island – On Animal Planet this September
Orangutan Island – On Animal Planet this September
For Australian viewers, Animal Planet is screening Orangutan Island on Wednesday and Sunday evenings. Be sure to watch at 7:30pm (AEST) on Wednesdays and 8:30pm (AEST) on Sundays starting September 10th.
A desperate struggle for survival is raging deep in the heart of Borneo’s forests. Illegal logging is rapidly destroying the Bornean orangutans’ last stronghold in the wild; leaving hundreds of orang babies orphaned and homeless.
Their future seems bleak but a ground-breaking project provides real hope for ensuring the survival of the species.
Meet the 35 classmates of Forest School 103 at the Nyaru Menteng Orangutan Rescue and Rehabilitation Centre. Through this innovative project, led by Lone Droscher-Nielsen and her team, the orangutans will get to live wild on a protected island, the foundation for the largest primate rescue project in the world.
Unlike wild orangutans, this group will be confined to an island where they will need to learn to live together in a community, something that will not come naturally to them. Learning to bond with other orangutans, forming friendships and sharing knowledge are all issues they will face.
Will the bonds they have formed at the Nyaru Menteng nursery survive and serve as a basis for creating a society or will issues of dominance prove too destructive?
