The only orangutan rehabilitation centre in Sumatra, Indonesia for orphan and refugee wild orangutans and confiscated illegal pets is being wound down by the Indonesian government. No alternative site has been found or provisions arranged, adding to the plight of Asiašs only ape populations critically at risk from the destruction of their forest habitat.

Orangutans are found only in Borneo and northern Sumatra, where illegal logging, forest fires and new palm oil plantations have reduced their wild habitat by up to 80 percent in 20 years.

Sumatrašs estimated 9,000 orangutans, scattered and threatened by human overcrowding, have no international champions, unlike those in Borneo. Refuge is urgently needed for a flood of displaced wild and ex-captive orangutans which otherwise face slaughter or starvation.

Established in 1973 by two Swiss zoologists with international funding, Bohorok Rehabilitation Centre was taken over in 1980 by the Indonesian Government. Some 200 orangutans have been released into the surrounding forest over 25 years, and 35-40 apes are currently held there. Rehabilitated orangutans return for supplementary feeding and others are kept in quarantine, but no additional orangutans can be accepted.

The centre is minimally funded, and with no money available for maintenance and improvements conditions are deteriorating. The Indonesian staff has been reduced from eight to four rangers, aided by foreign volunteers who contribute money for medicine and food for the apes in quarantine.

Volunteers report two avoidable orangutans deaths this autumn, one electrocuted after touching a live cable outside a guesthouse and the other while giving birth.

The Sumateran Orangutan Society (S.O.S.), set up recently by foreign volunteers, paid transport costs for Oki, a pet orangutan donated to Bohorok in June with the Department of Forestryšs permission, but another government department refused the transport permit because the centre was officially closed. Many such pets and refugees are unlikely to survive without a holding station.

The centre needs to be moved from its present site, which has become a popular beauty spot attracting visitors from as far as Medan, 80 km away, who stay in guesthouses across the Bohorok river. S.O.S. seeks funds immediately for Bohorok's orangutans, and in the longer term to help the Indonesian authorities to create new centre(s) with surrounding tracts of forest for relocation.

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