Page 16 n THE ASIAN REPORTER
ASIA / PACIFIC
May 15, 2017
Name sought for rare albino
orangutan rescued in Indonesia
JAKARTA, Indonesia (AP) — A
conservation group is seeking
assistance to name a rare albino
orangutan that was rescued from
villagers on Borneo island in April.
The group hopes the name will
become a symbol of efforts to save the
critically endangered species.
The five-year-old female great ape
is being kept in a dimly lit quarantine
enclosure
with
round-the-clock
veterinarian care after being rescued
in the Indonesian part of the island
on April 29, Borneo Orangutan
Survival Foundation spokesman
Nico Hermanu said. She’s the first
albino orangutan to be encountered
by the foundation in its 25 years of
conservation work.
The foundation said in a statement
that the orangutan has become an
ambassador for her species and it
wants a “meaningful” name for her
that will reflect the significant con-
servation challenges that orangutans
face in the wild.
It said she is sensitive to sunlight
due to a complete absence of pigmen-
tation and physically fragile, which is
common for rescued orangutans, but
gradually improving.
“Understandably, she still has a
long way to go in her recovery
following the trauma of losing her
mother and her illegal capture,” the
statement said.
Hermanu said villagers in Central
Kalimantan province on Borneo had
the orangutan for two days and
claimed it had strayed out of the
forest. Other villagers reported its
capture to police and a government
MASSIVE CLEANUP OPERATION. People collect garbage on
the north slope of Mount Qomolangma, in southwest China’s Tibet Auton-
omous Region. Workers and volunteers collected four tons of garbage
from the Chinese north side of Mount Everest in the first five days of a
cleanup operation, according to state media. (Awang Zhaxi/Xinhua via AP)
NEW NAME. An albino orangutan sits in a cage while under quarantine at a rehabilitation center
in Nyaru Menteng, Central Kalimantan, Indonesia. The Borneo Orangutan Survival Foundation con-
servation group is seeking assistance to name a rare albino orangutan that was rescued from villag-
ers on Borneo island in April. The group is hoping the name will become a symbol of efforts to save
the critically endangered species. (Indrayana/Borneo Orangutan Survival Foundation via AP)
conservation agency that asked the two-thirds since the early 1970s and
Borneo Orangutan Survival Founda- will further decline to 47,000 by 2025.
Bornean orangutans were declared
tion to intervene.
Hermanu said she may only have critically endangered by the IUCN
survived in the wild due to a pro- last year due to hunting for their
tective mother that she apparently meat and conflicts with plantation
became separated from. Whether she workers, which kills 2,000 to 3,000 a
can ever be returned to her natural year, and destruction of tropical
forests for plantation agriculture.
habitat is still uncertain, he said.
Orangutans, known for their gentle The only other orangutan species, the
temperament and intelligence, live in Sumatran orangutan, has been
the wild only on the Indonesian critically endangered since 2008.
Suggested names for the rescued
island of Sumatra and on Borneo,
which is divided among Indonesia, orangutan are being collected via
e-mail and social media until May 15.
Malaysia, and Brunei.
It and several other conservation
The International Union for Con-
servation
of
Nature
(IUCN) groups specialize in rehabilitating
estimates the number of Bornean captured orangutans and returning
orangutans has dropped by nearly them to the wild.
Tons of garbage collected
in Everest cleanup effort
BEIJING (AP) — Workers and volunteers collected four
tons of garbage from the Chinese north side of Mount
Everest in the first five days of a cleanup operation,
according to state media.
Hoping to find a more permanent solution, the local
government in the Tibet region set up stations to sort,
recycle, and break down the garbage, which includes cans,
plastic bags, stove equipment, tents, oxygen tanks, and
other mountain climbing paraphernalia, the official
Xinhua News Agency said.
The nine-day cleanup targets climbing trails and
campsites between 17,000 and 21,300 feet.
Parts of Everest are in China and Nepal. Each year,
about 60,000 climbers and guides visit the Chinese north
side of the mountain, which China refers to by its Tibetan
name, Mount Qomolangma.
On the Nepalese side, mountaineering expedition
organizers have begun sending huge trash bags with
climbers during the spring climbing season to collect trash
that then can be winched by helicopters back to the base
camp.
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