Experts concerned for safety of Alba, world’s only known albino orangutan, in country where poverty drives illegal hunting

Fears have arisen for the world’s only known albino orangutan, Alba, who has been released into a protected forest more than a year after being discovered bloodied and emaciated in a remote Indonesian village.

The blue-eyed, white-haired great ape is “very strong” after undergoing intensive rehabilitation with the Borneo Orangutan Survival Foundation (BOSF), which nursed the primate back to health after finding her caged and weighing just 8kg in April 2017.

But experts are concerned that Alba’s unique genetic condition could make her fall victim to poachers on an island where hunting and habitat loss have accounted for the deaths of nearly 150,000 orangutans in just 16 years.

“Alba has no inferiority complex as we imagined before. She is very confident compared to other orangutans,” said Indonesian veterinarian Agus Fathoni.

“I think the real threat actually comes from humans. What we’re worried about is poaching, where this very special condition makes her a target.”

Poaching is easy money, in a country where roughly 26 million people live below the poverty line. Orangutans fetch several hundred dollars in local markets, and skulls alone are worth roughly $70 (£55), according to WWF. Mother orangutans are often poached for their babies, which are then sold on the black market as pets. Other orangutans are simply hunted for their meat or killed for being “pests”: four men were arrested after shooting an orangutan 130 times and hacking it to death in February after it came onto their plantation, and another two rubber plantation workers were arrested after decapitating another orangutan.

Alba was originally due to be released on to a man-made island to accommodate health issues related to her albinism, including poor eyesight and hearing and the potential for skin cancer. But government conservationists agreed instead to release her into the protected Bukit Baka Bukit Raya national park, where she will be electronically tracked and monitored by a medical team.

“It’s true this is a big gamble, but we hope that with our collaboration we will win the big bet we have made today,” said BOSF’s Jamartin Sihite.

Park officials said they aimed to keep Alba safe from poachers and loggers but admitted there weren’t enough officers to patrol the entire habitat.

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“We don’t have enough to cover all the area of the national park but we’re confident of covering all the patrol lines that we have set,” said national park official Wirasadi Nursubhi.

The Bornean orangutan is considered critically endangered and has lost more than 55% of its natural habitat in the past two decades alone, according to the World Wildlife Fund (WWF).

New building projects and agricultural and palm oil plantations have pushed many of the island’s primates out of the forests and into potential conflict with humans. Even in the thickest forests on Borneo, orangutan populations have decreased by 50%, a study found, meaning that the animals are being hunted and poached by humans going into their territory.

“By 2080, if current trends continue, it has been projected that the Bornean orangutan will have lost up to 80% of its forest habitat,” said Cathy Smith of the UK-based Orangutan Foundation, citing illegal logging, palm oil plantations, forest fires, mining and small-scale shifting cultivation as the reasons for the decline.