Sepilok Rehabilitation Centre in the Malaysian Sabah District of North Borneo was founded in 1964, to rehabilitate orphan orang utans. The site is 43 sq km of protected land at the edge of Kabili Sepilok Forest Reserve. Today around 60 to 80 orang utans are living free in the reserve.

When Sabah became an independent state in Malaysia in 1963, a Game Branch was created in the Forest Department for the conservation of wild animals in the region.

Consequently, 43 sq km of protected land at the edge of Kabili Sepilok Forest Reserve was turned into a rehabilitation site for orang utans, and a centre built to care for the apes. Today around 25 young orphan orang utans are housed in the nurseries, in addition to those free in the reserve.

The facility provides medical care for orphaned and confiscated orang utans as well as dozens of other wildlife species. Some of the other animals which end up being treated at the centre include; Sun Bears, Gibbons Sumatran Rhinos and the occasional injured Elephant.

Recently rehabilitated individuals have their diet supplemented by daily feedings of milk and bananas. The additional food supplied by the centre is purposefully designed to be monotonous and boring so as to encourage the apes to start to forage for themselves.

Sepilok is considered by the Wildlife Department to be a useful educational tool with which to educate both the locals and visitors alike, however, they are adamant that the education must not interfere with the rehabilitation process. Visitors are restricted to walkways and are not allowed to approach or handle the apes.

In the wild orang utan babies stay with their mothers for up to six years while they are taught the skills they need to survive in the forest, the most important of which is climbing. At Sepilok a buddy system is used to replace a mother’s teaching. A younger ape will be paired up with an older one to learn the skills they need.

Before the creation of a reserve in the area, many young orang utans were the victims of the illegal pet trade throughout Asia. If they weren’t caught during logging or forest clearance, they were captured by poachers who slaughtered the adult apes to get at them. The Malaysian Government has clamped down on illegal trading, outlawing all such practice and imposing prison sentances on anyone caught keeping them as pets.

Youngsters kept in captivity often become sick or suffer neglect which in some cases extends to cruelty. Whilst some of the Orang utans raised as pets can never be returned to the wild, others can be rehabilitated, but it is a long and expensive process taking up to seven years, but one centres such as Sepilok take on without question.

(News extract from www.orangutan-appeal.org.uk)