A BABY orangutan in Borneo has been rescued after spending six months chained up on a narrow wooden shelf.

In early November the International Animal Rescue (IAR) Orangutan Centre in Ketapang, West Borneo learned of a baby orangutan being kept as a pet.

A rescue operation aided by Uckfield charity International Animal Rescue, was set up with the Forestry Department (BKSDA) and the rescue team found the little female named Bonika chained to the wall in the kitchen.

She was chained so tightly around the neck that she was clearly in considerable discomfort. The length of the chain was also very short so that Bonika could barely move from side to side and was stranded on the plank of wood.

The medical team carried out a dental check and concluded that she is about eighteen months old.

The man who captured Bonika said he had been keeping her as a family pet since June when he claimed to have found her in the middle of a palm oil plantation. He was on his way to work at a rubber tree plantation when he said he spotted the little orangutan all alone and looking very thin. So he caught her and brought her home to live with his family.

Bonika was fed on rice, sugar cane, biscuits, bread, mineral water and baby milk. She was set free for a while every morning and evening to play with his daughter and she was bathed using human shampoo. When she wasn’t playing with his daughter, Bonika was chained up on the plank in the kitchen to stop her escaping from the house.

The man eventually realised it was illegal to keep a wild orangutan as a pet and was willing to hand the orangutan over to the BKSDA.

Alan Knight OBE, Chief Executive of International Animal Rescue, said: “What a miserable existence for a wild baby orangutan. To be chained up alone on a narrow plank of wood without the company and comfort of her mother.

“We are relieved that Bonika is now safely in our care but also deeply saddened by the likely fate of her mother. No mother orangutan parts willingly with her baby and Bonika’s mother was almost certainly killed.

“In July the Bornean Orangutan was reclassified by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature as Critically Endangered. Every precious individual counts: every animal we save is a triumph and every animal that dies is a tragedy. Babies like Bonika are our hope for the future – but it needs the will of all those involved in the orangutans’ decline to commit to preserving the forest these magnificent great apes need to survive.”