On this occasion, the adult orangutan only had minor skin wounds and she had a roped tied around her wrist when the team found her.
Advertisement
The apes ended up in the village after the mother saved her baby from forest fires that are now ravaging Indonesia.
Orangutans have increasingly been forced to enter populated areas of Borneo in search of food due to their shrinking habitat and are seen by a few villagers as pests.
“This is a global environmental crisis and it is already considered by experts as the worst man-made ecological disaster of the century which will affect the lives of people the world over”, Karmele Llano Sanchez, Program Director for IAR Indonesia, explains in a statement.
A photograph showed the mother, still under the effects of anaesthesia with her baby clinging to her side staring up at her saviours.
The team was able to rescue the mother and the baby orangutan by anaesthetising them immediately after reaching the spot.
The orangutans have been kept at the conservation area of palm oil company PT Kayung Agro Lestari and will be under monitoring for the next two weeks.
The UK-based charity has conducted more than a dozen operations in the past two months to rescue orangutans who have moved away from their natural habitats strayed.
Alan Knight OBE, chief executive of IAR, said: ‘We are thrilled with Gito’s progress so far.
‘Of course he has a very long way to go in his recover – and a long journey ahead if he is to be rehabilitated and eventually return to the wild – but he is in safe hands now.
‘Tragically, Gito won’t be the last baby we rescue.
“I would just urge the public to continue supporting our work so that we can save as many orangutans’ lives as possible”.
The deliberately started fires are normally used to clear land for agriculture, but have this year spread into the country’s rainforests and national parks.
Advertisement
The dry season exacerbates the fires and region-wide pollution.
