PETALING JAYA: Deforestation, together with frequently occurring forest fires, drought brought about by the El Nino effect and floods play havoc on the fragile livelihood of the orang utan population, making it more and more likely for these primates to land up in Sepilok. 

These are the primary causes of overcrowding at Sabah’s Sepilok Orang Utan Rehabilitation Centre. 

A local conservationist in Sandakan, who declined to be named, said many of the orang utan were brought to Sepilok because they had lost their homes or were displaced by deforestation. 

“You will also see more orang utan at Sepilok during a drought as they return to the centre for food, as they cannot find food in the jungle. 

“In good times, you might have more human visitors looking at a solitary orang utan in Sepilok because the primate can find food on its own in the jungle,” the conservationist said. 

WWF-Malaysia’s chairman Tengku Zainal Adlin said the orang utan faced numerous threats both from man and from natural phenomena like floods and fires. 

He said there was an urgent need for local and international communities and NGOs to work with the government to rehabilitate displaced orang utan and return them to the wild. 

“This co-operation need not necessarily be through financial assistance. The overcrowding at the Sepilok Orang Utan Rehabilitation Centre in Sandakan is not new. 

“The centre has always been overcrowded with almost 80 orang utan living within its one square kilometre forests,” he said. 

He said many of the primates were particularly affected by the massive floods earlier this year, which inundated several orang utan habitats. 

“Many of the areas were flooded for two months early this year. Orang utan cannot swim,” he said. 

Adlin said the orang utan were territorial by nature and as such needed a bigger area to be relocated to. 

“Tabin Wildlife Reserve is possibly a good area for the orang utan. The area is twice the size of Danum Valley (the present relocation site), in fact it is twice the size of Singapore,” he said. 

Adlin was commenting on The Star’s report on Wednesday that the Sepilok orang utan rehabilitation centre and its 10,000ha forest reserve in the east coast Sandakan district were getting too crowded with primates.  

State Wildlife Department officials are looking at relocating the rehabilitated primates to the Tabin Wildlife Reserve some 90km away but the cost of doing so is prohibitive. State Assistant Minister of Tourism, Culture and Environment Datuk Karim Bujang had called on international NGOs to help out.