The forlorn ape made a pitiful sight as rescuers discovered her with a chain around her neck and living amid a pile of fetid rubbish. She had been living a life of neglect and misery for more than two years. As the rains were coming down, Japik was trying to keep herself dry by picking up an old jacket and pulling it over her head.

IAR Japik had been chained up like this for two years

As these poignant images show, she could easily have been dismissed as a pile of rags rather than one of the planet's most endangered and intelligent creatures.

As our video shows, the poor orangutan couldn't escape from the rain and was cold and drenched by the time we reached her IAR chief executive Alan Knight

Film of the moment that Japik was discovered and then finally cut free from her chains was released today by International Animal Rescue after the British-based charity helped save her in a remote village in West Kalimantan (Indonesian Borneo). For two years Japik had suffered a life balancing on a plank with the chain around her neck so tight that she could only move a few feet while enduring baking sunshine and heavy rains. She had been taken from the wild by a hunter who killed her mother before passing her on as a pet.

The owner, who said his brother gave him the baby ape after getting her from the hunter, had contacted the IAR rescue team when he heard about the charity's rescue work. He knew it was illegal to keep an orang utan but wanted to surrender Japik to the right people and had even refused an offer of £100 to sell her on as a pet. When the rescuers finally arrived to get Japik, they had to use pliers to unwind the chain from around her neck before she could be taken away to begin her rehabilitation. IAR chief executive Alan Knight described the scene as Japik, who is now aged between four or five, was eventually rescued. "It was pouring with rain when our team arrived on the scene and at first they couldn't see Japik," he explained. "They spotted what they thought was a pile of old rags on the plank but then, when they saw it moving, they knew they had found her.

IAR IAR taking Japik to quarantine

"As our video shows, the poor orangutan couldn't escape from the rain and was cold and drenched by the time we reached her. What a miserable existence for any animal, to be trapped on a wooden plank, unable to display any natural behaviour and completely exposed to the burning sun and the driving rain. "The chain was so short that she could only move a couple of feet on either side of the tree. Her owner may never have intended to make her suffer but suffer she certainly did." Japik's story mirrors many of the other baby orang utans that have been rescued from Borneo in recents times, either the victims of an insidious pet trade or also from the El Nino-whipped fires that have destroyed so much of the apes' precious rainforest haunts. "Japik is yet another orangutan in a long line that our team has rescued recently," added Knight.

IAR The owner contacted IAR after hearing about their rescue work

IAR Rescue workers lead Japik away from her captivity