Thailand

Thailand sends smuggled orangutans back to Indonesia

Published

Friday, December 18, 2020 11:10

PHOTO: Nation Thailand

After being smuggled through Southeast Asia, seized by Thai border officials, and then cared for at a Thailand wildlife centre for 3 years, a pair of endangered Sumatran orangutans are being sent back to Indonesia.

Back in June 2017, border officials seized the orangutans, Ung Ing and Nathalie, from smugglers at a customs checkpoint in the southern province Songkhla, near Malaysia. After being seized, the orangutans, now 4 years old, were sent to a wildlife sanctuary in Ratchaburi.

Yesterday, the orangutans were transported from the Khao Prathapchang wildlife sanctuary in Ratchaburi to Bangkok’s Suvarnabhumi Airport. The primates were cleared for Covid-19 before the flight and fed bananas and green apples. The orangutans will stay at a rehabilitation centre in Indonesia’s Jambi province on Sumatra Island.

Deputy director-general of the Department of National Parks, Wildlife and Plant Conservation, Prakit Wongsriwattanakul, says this is the fifth time since 2006 that Thailand has returned orangutans, that were seized from smugglers, back to Indonesia in a collaborative crackdown on illegal wildlife trade. Altogether, 71 orangutans have been sent back to Indonesia from Thailand.

SOURCES: Reuters |Bangkok Post

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3 Comments

Toby Andrews

Friday, December 18, 2020 at 1:24 pm

What happened?
Did the Thais become tired of feeding them when there were no tourists paying to see them?
That likely reason, otherwise they would have sent them back a month after they arrived.
Thais usually an ulterior motive.

Reply
- Jowen
  
  Friday, December 18, 2020 at 11:29 pm
  
  Oh come on Toby… at least they cared for those orangutans for the time being… because either way they would have just let those smugglers pass through or without being caught and still makes money by sell them… I just saying 🙂
  
  Reply
- James Pate
  
  Saturday, December 19, 2020 at 5:53 am
  
  3 years is a long time, but I guess the apes had to wait for the legal process against the smugglers to be finalised. I hope they will be happy in their new home.
  
  Reply

Caitlin Ashworth

Caitlin Ashworth is a writer from the United States who has lived in Thailand since 2018. She graduated from the University of South Florida St. Petersburg with a bachelor’s degree in journalism and media studies in 2016. She was a reporter for the Daily Hampshire Gazette In Massachusetts. She also interned at the Richmond Times-Dispatch in Virginia and Sarasota Herald-Tribune in Florida.

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