HUNDREDS of wild orang-utans quarantined in Indonesian rehabilitation centres
could soon be released, following a major rethink in policies for conserving the
apes.
The orang-utans are infected with hepatitis B, which they were thought to
have caught from humans. Conservationists feared that wild populations could be
decimated if the captive animals were ever reintroduced, but research in Borneo
has now shown that the virus they are carrying in fact poses no threat to the
wild apes.
Kristin Warren of Murdoch University in Perth, Western Australia, made the
discovery with colleagues in East Kalimantan, Borneo. They found that the rare
apes…
