THE AMAZING STORY OF ORANGUTAN NOBRI
On September 23, 2020, a special event took place. Back on May 30, 2001, an 8-year-old orangutan named Shelli arrived at the Nyaru Menteng Orangutan Rehabilitation Centre. She had spent many years living as a pet in Jakarta, which wasn’t allowed. Now, she was finally going back to her home island of Borneo.
Even though Shelli missed out on growing up in the wild with her mom because of human mistreatment, she managed to succeed. At first, she relied on humans for everything, but after just two years, she finished forest school and moved to an island where she could start to live on her own. It was on this island that Shelli became pregnant. On August 29, 2005, she had her first baby, a daughter named Nobri.
Shelli was an amazing mom to Nobri, teaching her to be a fully independent orangutan. By 2010, Nobri was already roaming around on her own. Then, in 2010, Shelli had another baby girl named Forest. Nobri was raised by her mom, learning all the skills she needed to survive and having a strong fear of humans. However, her strong independence caused a problem in 2013. When she, Shelli, and Forest were chosen to be released back into the wild, Nobri was too quick and cautious for the vet team to catch her safely. Despite many tries, they couldn’t tranquilize her. So, they had to pick another orangutan for release and let Nobri stay on the island.
In 2016, everything changed. While preparing candidates for the 12th release from Nyaru Menteng, the vet team spotted an unaware Nobri. They saw an opportunity and seized it. Three years after their initial plans, they were final able to sedate wild Nobri and on April 22, 2016 she was finally released into the Bukit Batikap Protection Forest.
Nobri quickly showed that she was a clever wild orangutan. She made it tricky for the Post-Release Monitoring team to keep up with her. She stayed high up in the trees, hid from their sight, and made loud kiss-squeak sounds whenever they tried to watch her.
On November 26, 2017, I met Nobri for the first time and saw how wild and amazing she was. That day, we noticed some unusual swelling near her armpits. Even though she acted like her usual self, we thought it was best to keep an eye on her and see what happened next.
As time passed, the small bumps in Nobri’s armpits grew bigger, and soon her air sac started to swell too. The vets said she had air sacculitis, which is a painful and dangerous illness. But Nobri was incredibly strong. She never showed any signs of being in pain, even though the disease was serious.
In late 2018, Nobri’s condition was getting worse, so we knew we had to do something. Pak Sugi, the best sedative dart sniper from Nyaru Menteng, went with Vet Greggy on a three-day trip to Batikap. There, they sedated Nobri and brought her back to our camp. Treating her air sacculitis required many surgeries and giving her medicine by mouth for a long time.
We were really happy when, after two and a half months, the vet said Nobri was ready to go back into the wild. Air sacculitis often comes back, but this time it seemed like Nobri had gotten rid of it. So, we let her go back to her natural habitat, but we made sure to keep an eye on her by checking in regularly. With everything set, Nobri was released again on January 27, 2019.
After Nobri went back to the forest, the PRM team did their best to keep an eye on her. But because she was so wild, she went really far into the forest and we couldn’t find her for months. It wasn’t until May that we found her again. And she wasn’t pleased about it at all.
As soon as the team found Nobri, she made loud kiss-squeak sounds and shook branches at them. But they knew they had to keep checking on her. As they got closer, they started to worry. It looked like her air sac might be swelling again. Were her air sacculitis back? They decided they needed to watch her carefully, even if she didn’t like it. But Nobri didn’t want to be near humans. When the team came back the next day, she had already left.
As time went on, the team started to get really concerned. They tried their hardest to find Nobri, but they had no luck. Then, six months later, when they thought they wouldn’t find anything, their radiotelemetry equipment picked up a signal. It was from Nobri! But it was faint and far away. Sometimes they could hear it, and other times it disappeared.
The team was really worried. It was January 27, 2020, exactly one year since Nobri had gone back to the forest after her surgeries and treatment for air sacculitis. The team was searching for her south of the Joloi River. But today, they got lucky. Just a few steps from the river, they saw what looked like two orangutans. When they looked closer, they realized the first orangutan was Manggo, and she had her baby with her. The second orangutan was making a lot of kiss-squeak sounds—it was Nobri!
But not only Nobri. Nobri had a tiny new infant clinging to her!
When we found Nobri’s baby, it was the first wild birth of 2020. Plus, the baby was the second generation born from the BOS Foundation rehabilitation program!
As a new mom, Nobri wanted to keep her distance from humans. She stayed up high in the trees, hidden behind leaves, so the team couldn’t get a picture of her or even figure out if her baby was a boy or girl! We hoped to share a photo of the baby with you, but Nobri’s still keeping her distance. But that’s okay! It just shows how wild and protective she is as a mom, and we respect that.
Almost twenty years after Shelli was saved from the city life in Jakarta, her granddaughter was born in the wild forests of Borneo. The story of Nobri is a long one, but it shows that there’s always hope. Even when things seem really hard, these strong and amazing orangutans can overcome anything if we give them a chance.
