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Good job,
may this set out a good precedence. "Born to be Wild" seems like a
great movie, not my kind of movie but it looks great from watching the trailer.
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Four
orangutans were released into the wild on Indonesia’s Borneo island on Tuesday,
an official said, as the country ramps up efforts to protect the animals from
extinction.
They were
the first among 40 orangutans planned to be released by the end of the year,
Mega Hariyanto, the forestry ministry’s conservation chief for Central
Kalimantan province, told AFP.
“The
orangutans were flown from the rehabilitation center to a town near the Bukit
Batikap forest on Monday. A team of vets took them to the forest this morning
by helicopter,” he said.
The release
was a collaborative effort between the Forestry Ministry and non-profit
organization Borneo Orangutan Survival (BOS) Foundation, Hariyanto said.
“There are
still more than 600 individual orangutans at the Central Kalimantan Orangutan
Reintroduction Project who are waiting to be released back to their natural
habitat,” the organization said in a press statement.
A dozen
more orangutans are expected to be set free by end of next month, it added.
Experts say
there are about 50,000 to 60,000 orangutans left in the wild, 80 percent of
them in Indonesia and the rest in Malaysia.
They are
faced with extinction from poaching and the rapid destruction of their forest
habitat, driven largely by palm oil and paper plantations.
Conservationists
in the region have been raising awareness about the plight of the endangered
primates in various ways.
“Born to be
Wild,” a documentary by Warner Bros and IMAX which has been screening worldwide
since last year, shows primate expert and Orangutan Foundation International
founder Birute Mary Galdikas rescue, rehabilitate and return orphaned
orangutans into the wild.
The film’s
producers last week screened the film in the jungle where, according to the
crew, at least four orangutans watched themselves on screen.
“Their
reaction was great. Orangutans have short attention span and it is incredible
to have them sit 10 to 15 minutes to watch the movie,” crew member Frederick
Galdikas said.
Agence France-Presse
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