Unprecedent footage from one of the World Land Trust’s (WLT) partners in Borneo has shown a wild Orangutan using a bridge designed to reconnect its forest habitats.

The Frontline

Hutan, in Sabah, Malaysian Borneo, are one of WLT’s key partners in Borneo, an area that is on the frontline in the battle to protect key rainforest ecosystems from development. In association with the Sabah Wildlife Department, Hutan installed a number of rope bridges across tributaries of the Kinabatangan in order to reconnect fragments of the Lower Kinabatangan Wildlife Sanctuary (LKWS) for Orang-utans.

Isolation

These bridges have become necessary because the large trees that provided natural bridges over wetland and river tributaries have been lost in deforestation, and also because drains built by palm oil producers, leading to the mighty Kinabatangan River, have further fragmented the forest.

The effect of this fragmentation is that Orangutan populations that previously could travel and mix freely with each other, were becoming increasingly isolated, which is believed to be one of the reasons behind the dramatic fall in numbers the species has experienced.

Last, but not least

The rope bridges were a simple solution but until this year there had been no recordings of Orang-utans using them, even though other endangered primate species, such as macaques, Proboscis Monkeys and gibbons have been benefitting from them.

First Evidence

But a young male was photographed by Ajiran Osman – a member of the local community with an interest in wildlife – as it ventured into the unknown in search of new habitat.

Mr Osman said that the red ape appeared to be weighing up whether to cross the bridge or not, lingering for about twenty minutes before deciding to take the plunge, “It seemed like once he decided to cross, he did so very fast, going over in about three minutes.”

Orang-utans have occasionally been reputed to have crossed man-made bridges, but this is the first official evidence.

A Bleak Future Without Our Help

A recent “Population Viability Analysis” concluded that most of the 20 sub-populations of Orang-utans throughout the fragments of the LKWS will go extinct in the foreseeable future unless their forest habitats are reconnected.

WLT continues to raise funds for the purchase of critically important wildlife corridors in the area that will permanently connect standing forests and protect them in perpetuity.