All language subtitles for Orangutan Diary Series 1 3of5_Subtitles01.ENG

Last time on Orang-utan Diary...

Ellie, our little orphan, was
settling into life at the centre.

Meanwhile, her playmate Grendon
was a little nervous on his first
trip into the forest.

You're frightened, aren't you?

There was sad news from the nursery,

where one of the infants lost its
fight against the flu virus.

With everyone concerned about
more orang-utans getting sick,

it was fantastic to see Lomon
taking his first steps to recovery.

But it was the most recent arrivals,
a starving mother and baby,

that brought home once again,
the sad plight of the orang-utan.

The Borneo Orang-utan Survival
Foundation

cares for rescued and confiscated
orang-utans.

More than 450, from babies
to mature adults,

have found a safe home
at the centre.

Many are the victims
of deforestation.

Forests are cleared to make way for
massive plantations.

If things don't change, wild
orang-utans could be extinct
within 10 years.

The centre is working almost at
capacity,

but it does all it can
to care for, educate and return
orang-utans to the wild.

Steve has come to check up on the
mother and baby,

rescued from the edge of a palm oil
plantation yesterday.

We're hoping there's been some
improvement.

SHE SQUEAKS AND GRUNTS

She's looking a lot better.

It's a totally different picture
from when she first came in.

SHE SQUEAKS AND GRUNTS

This behaviour, this kiss squeaking,
as it's called...

HE MIMICS THE SQUEAKING NOISE
I can't do it.

That's all a defensive response to
feeling slightly threatened,

and obviously scared still. It's
important that she continues that,

because she's going back to the wild,
so we don't want to tame her or make
her used to humans.

'Rescued from the wild with its
mother to cling to,

'this baby is very fortunate.

'Their bond will last
for up to six years -

'six years of love and learning.

'Sadly, orphaned babies are the most
common arrivals at the centre,

'confiscated from people keeping them
as illegal pets.

'Yesterday, when a second mother
and baby arrived,

'it was hoped they too would
be soon well enough for a quick
return to the wild.

'But despite the best efforts of
Lone, Michaela and the others,

'things aren't looking at all good
for the baby.'

It's incredible how quickly things
can turn around for these
little babies.

Only yesterday we were saying

that at least this one has come in
with its mother.

As long as it can stay with
its mother,

and its mother can keep feeding it,
it stands a very good chance

of being put straight back
in the wild

and not having to go through
rehabilitation.

Things have taken a horrible turn.

This morning, this baby was found on
the floor of the cage...

..very weak and beginning to go
cold.

You only have to look at this little
baby to know that it's...

it's really not in a good way.

'Everything that can be done is being
done to help this baby.

'The centre has excellent veterinary
facilities

'and four fully-qualified vets.

'An increasing problem for the centre
is the number of animals arriving
with broken bones.

'Tragically, some of these injuries
have been caused by people.

'This six-year-old male has a nasty
fracture that's not healed properly.

'Unfortunately, the one piece of
equipment the centre doesn't have

'is an X-ray machine.

'When the chance arrived to borrow
one from a neighbouring charity,

'we took it straightaway.'
OK.

They've already got some really
interesting X-rays in.

If I show you this one...

This is one of the mothers
that has come in.

You can see this bone has been
broken here. It's all in a mess.

If you look here, there's these
white specks as well.

The only thing that can be
is bits of metal,

which makes me think that it's
actually been a gunshot wound.

This orang-utan has been shot in the
arm here

and it's smashed this bone.

Thankfully it seems there is evidence
of some healing there

and the vet said when they felt it,
it seemed to be fairly stable.

It's gonna be a few months before
that completely heals.

It goes to show how useful having
X-rays and X-ray facilities
here would be.

Saving an endangered species has
high points and low points and...

it's definitely nothing lower than
losing a little baby.

SHE SIGHS

For me, seeing a baby orang-utan
lose its fight for life is of
course deeply upsetting.

It's difficult to hide my emotions,
but it's important to remember

that there is still hope for so many
other orang-utans here.

One special character who always
seems to cheer me up

is little Lomon.

'He's really benefiting from all the
care and attention.

'Only yesterday, he started eating
and drinking properly
for the first time.'

Do you want some of this? Hey!
Are you sharing your lunch?

Yeah, look at this! This is Lomon.
Can you believe it?

Well, yeah! We can see his bald head!
He's not difficult to spot.

But it's amazing. Lomon was just
not eating. Yeah.

Now he's eating my leftover lunch!

THEY LAUGH

It really is. He just seems to have
selected what he wants to eat.

He looks like...
This he clearly likes.

Look, he loves the noodles in my
soup. D'you want that?

I bet you he gets some of his own
before he takes that.

That's my bet, anyway.
OK, let's see. OK.

SHE LAUGHS
Yay, I won!

Yay, there you go, you won.

What's amazing is he's obviously
getting over the psychological
trauma he's been through.

The next stage is to fatten him
up a bit.

He seems to be... He's on... ..quite
enthusiastic about that. Yeah.

He is. He's just... I think,
it's just...

being very gentle around him. God
knows what must have happened to him

to make him so cautious,
so sort of...scared, really.

You know the other really good
thing? What?

His hair's growing back. It is,
isn't it? Look at that! He's got
little tufts of hair coming.

He'll look a bit more like the rest
of them soon, hopefully.

People would look at this orang-utan
and think,

surely it should be eating fruit,

cos that's what it eats in the wild.

But is it just because he's so
underweight,

anything he eats is better than
nothing?

Mammals are fantastic at knowing what
they're lacking. He will have an
inherent ability

to find foods that are actually
what he needs.

Humans are similar. Sometimes you
crave protein. You think,

I want... You have to listen to your
own body, and that's what he seems to
be doing.

Every time he's offered food,
he turns his nose up at it,

and then he'll go off and bimble
about and say,

this is what I want, which is exactly
what wild orangs do.

They take what they need and explore
interesting sources of food.

I've got a craving for chocolate,
you haven't got any, have you? No.

SHE LAUGHS

I'll leave you with him. See you
later. I'll go and check on the
other guys.

You want some juice?

I'm back in Forest School One

to check how my mates Ellie and
Grendon are getting on.

Lessons were going well,

but we've been surprised by an
unwelcome visitor.

This is Derry.

As you can spot, he shouldn't
actually be in School One anymore.

It's actually been five years since
he was here,

but this is where he was trained.

It goes to show that he's learned
quite a bit as well,

because he's managed to escape from
the area where he should be

to make his way all the way back.

It's actually when you see one of
these really big guys in the trees

that you understand this is the
biggest tree-dwelling animal
on the planet.

It's a great example
to these little guys

the way he uses all that body weight
to trapeze himself from tree to tree.

The distraction seems to be putting
lessons on hold for the time being.

While Derry seems to be enjoying
throwing his weight around,

our little ones do need to be
careful.

He doesn't know his own strength,
and his games could result in Ellie
and Grendon getting seriously hurt.

SHOUTING

THEY CONTINUE TO SHOUT

She's far too close for comfort.

Understandably, the sitters
want her down.

SHOUTING

He's still hanging around, but he
seems to be moving from our babies,

which is a good thing because since
he turned up,

they've been very reluctant to spend
any time in the trees at all.

Hopefully, that's the last we'll see
of him.

Hello, Mr Lomon.

Up you come.

'Little Lomon's improvement has
surprised everyone.

'He seems to be putting all the
mistreatment he received in
captivity behind him,

'and at last he's well enough to
take his first trip into the forest.

'Lomon is joining up with one of
the groups from Forest School One.

'He'll soon begin lessons
in finding food,

'and hopefully start climbing
some trees.

'Let's hope this is the beginning of
Lomon's road to recovery,

'and the start of a promising
school career.'

It is so good to see him like this.

It wasn't that long ago
that he was so poorly,

I thought it was touch and go
whether he'd make it.

He was so weak, so thin
and so disinterested.

That's the thing... Sometimes,
some of these orang-utans

who've been through such a trauma
in their lives,

sometimes they just give up
the will to live,

and it doesn't matter how much love
and attention you give them,

you're not gonna magically make them
want to live.

He seems to have grasped
his second chance now.

Derry, the intruder, has been safely
removed from Forest School One.

While Ellie and Grendon recover from
the excitement,

I'm taking a trip deeper into the
forest to check out their future
secondary school.

This is Forest School Two.

This is big school. There are 53
orang-utans in here of various ages.

All those lessons that they learned
in Forest School One,

this is where they're put into
practice. Come on!

HE GROANS

This is one school run where you do
need a 4x4.

The orangs seem to have a much easier
time getting through this stuff
than we do.

Some of them haven't bothered
touching the ground at all.

These guys have just moved in the
canopy, all the way,

occasionally dropping sticks on us,
just to lend a bit of encouragement.

Oooh! Come on, guys.

LAUGHTER
Guys, there's something very warm

appearing on my foot.
What you need is another one,

then you'll have a matching pair of
very orange furry slippers.

THEY LAUGH

Come on!

'It's another call-out for the
rescue team.

'An orphan baby orang-utan is being
held in a village

'right on the edge of a palm oil
plantation.

'It's illegal to keep orang-utans
as pets,

'so we're gonna join up with the
authorities

'to confiscate the baby and bring it
back to the centre.'

Wow, look at this.

This is the beginning
of the palm oil plantation.

This isn't actually where we're
doing our confiscation from,

but this is the sort of place that
rescues happen all the time.

You can see the forest has just
recently been cut down.

That's what you can see
all at the side.

Goodness knows how far back this is
going to go.

This is just the beginning of this
plantation.

It'll go deep into the forest,
and as they cut the forest back,

orang-utans and other animals are
being pushed back, back and back,

and eventually, there'll be nowhere
for those orang-utans to go.

You look at something like this,

and it's very easy to wag a finger
at the wrong people.

To me, this is consumerism
at its worst.

A lot of these plantations are owned
by wealthy foreigners.

Indonesians, a lot of the time,
don't benefit at all.

Some of them have lost their homes,
others are paid very poorly and
have poor working conditions.

Where does the demand come from?

A lot of the time
from people like myself

and people wanting cheap products
in supermarkets.

This is the sort of scene you see
all over Borneo.

This is the biggest problem
for orang-utans here.

We're on the last leg
of our journey.

What condition the little
orphan orang-utan will be in
when we find it, nobody knows.

What we do know is that it's being
handed over voluntarily.

We're finally here.
This is the house the orang-utan is.

There's procedures
when you do these sort of things,
so we've come with the police

and we've also come with the chief
of the local village.

This is the orang-utan
that we've come to collect.

Oh, it's tiny! It's tiny!

It's absolutely weenie.

Hello, sweetheart.

Hello.

He's wondering what on earth
is going on.

Well the story as I understand it is
that this little baby

was found in a field that was being
burnt so that they could grow crops.

The dogs started barking and they
found this little one.

The mother was nowhere to be seen.
Nobody knows what happened to her.

So this particular story,
it looks like they didn't want it
as a pet, they just found it.

And then have kept it.

BABY ORANG-UTAN GRUNTS

'It's coming up to feeding time in
Forest School and there's a mood of
expectation amongst the orang-utans!'

The main difference between
Forest School One

and here in Forest School Two, is
that the baby-sitters are no more.

It's all male technicians, and
they're not here to cuddle and look
after every need of orang-utans.

They're here to supervise them,
feed them and generally
check that they're OK.

Oh, obviously with this number
of orang-utans in... Ow!

..in one place, you have to be a
little bit careful that you
don't get bombarded from above,

but also that they're all fed.

These guys are provided with
two big meals a day.

They'll happily eat every variety of
fruit and veg that's served up.

In the wild their food is far more
difficult to come by,

so they can't afford to be
fussy eaters, and are known to eat
up to 400 different things!

All of these orang-utans
are around the age that if they were
still with their mothers,

they'd be getting much more
independent,

they'd be spending
more and more time away,

but yet still totally aware
of where their mother is.

And the thing is
that it's the same for these guys.

They do seem to be bimbling off
into the woods on their own,

but they're all consciously,
sort of, keeping an eye
on where the technicians are,

when the next food supply is
coming in and this sort of thing.

Forest School is a bit like
a halfway house,

as these orang-utans are halfway
through their rehabilitation.

As they get more confident,
they start to spend the night
in the forest alone,

learning to make their own nests and
developing real independence.

It's wonderful to think that next
year Ellie and Grendon should be over
here, making nests of their own.

In the village, it looks like
the captive baby orang-utan is
finally about to be handed over.

When someone has voluntarily
given up an orang-utan,

it's done in an official
but very friendly way.

Papers are signed,
educational material is given out,

even some T-shirts are handed over.

Education is obviously so,
so important.

These that people who live on
the river, they don't know the
orang-utans are really endangered.

They don't know
that they need protecting.

THEY SPEAK IN LOCAL DIALECT

It's name is Dina, Dina.

Hello, Dina!

Dina is a female, we've found out,
and has been kept here
for about six months.

So she's been six months
without her mother

and without love and affection
that she should be getting.

Oh, she wants
to get back into the cage!

Well, that was a very easy
confiscation.

At last she's freely handed over.

Her world is about to change -
and change for the better.

'We need to get her back to the
centre as fast as possible -

'get her checked out
and quarantined,

'then straight into nursery
where she'll learn
to become an orang-utan.'

Once feeding time is over
in Forest School Two,

the orang-utans head for the trees.

So I've come back to join my mates
Ellie and Grendon for their
final lessons and the home run.

The lesson we're about to do now
is to show our little troop
that fruit does indeed grow on trees.

In my hand I have our ready-made
fruit tree

and see if we can encourage
our little babies up the tree.

So here we go!

Aggis is a very clever orang-utan.

No, you've got to leave some
for the others! Look at that!

Now do you see that?

My particular favourite Grendon,

I don't think is the sharpest tool
in the box, unlike the girls.

But I'm sure
he'll rise to the challenge.

STEVE GENTLY ENCOURAGES ELLIE

Nanda's taken the aerial route
so she might actually come down
this tree to get some fruit.

Good girl!

So it's two-nil to the girls,
Grendon.

See, Aggis is laughing at you.

STEVE LAUGHS

Ah, make the most of it,
why don't you!

Come on, come on.

Good lad, good lad.

You dropped it.

I don't believe it, you dropped it!

What sort of orang-utan are you?
Come on.

Huh!

Quick, get that before Aggis
robs it all. Come on, come on.

Seeing them all in tree together
actually, is, um...

might look a bit artificial,
but funnily enough

when you get fruiting trees
producing masses of fruit,

that is where you will get a lot
of youngsters all together

and it's a chance in the wild for
them to socialise with each other.

It's one of the only times that
orang-utans will come together.

WOMAN SHOUTS IN DISTANCE

Oh, it's having a baby.

We've just heard that - one of the...

Yep, one of the orang-utans
is having a baby.

Quick, quick!

It's coming out now.

BABY SQUEALS

There it goes, that's it.
That's it...

Give her some time.

Good girl, well done!

Well done!

Good girl.
BABY ORANG-UTAN SQUEALS

Good sound - that's what you need.

That's it.

INDISTINCT SPEECH
She is, yes.

With the birth of any animal,
I always think
it's best not to interfere

unless you absolutely have to.

It's important that mother
and baby learn about each other
and bond as quickly as possible.

Come on, girl, that's it.

She'll sort the umbilical cord
out herself.

It's got good movement already
and it's a good sign it's vocalising.

BABY ORANG-UTAN SQUEALS

Good girl.

She's doing well,
she's doing very well.

Yes, but the baby's lying with her
neck right on top of that thing.

She's doing absolutely fine.
Absolutely fine.

Have you ever had any kids? Nope.
Neither have I... Exactly!

Don't worry...

She'll sort it, she'll sort it.

She doesn't know
quite how things work out yet.

It's amazing to see a newborn animal
cling so tightly,

obviously, and it makes
perfect sense if you are
going to be born 100ft up a tree!

That's it.

She's so gentle.

And she is doing really well.

She's bonding with it, cleaning it.

You're always worried they're going
to leave it in the corner of a cage

and not know what they're for.

She's doing really, really well.

That's a definite first. I never
thought I'd get to see that.

It's such a privilege to see
a newborn baby orang-utan,

and with its mother
to look after it and plenty of care
and attention from Lone and her team,

this baby should have
a fighting chance.

Only time will tell.

Next time on Orang-utan Diary:

It's a special day for Zorro,
the big male.

He's given his first taste of
freedom after 13 years in a cage.

Lomon has a testing time
as he starts his first lessons
in Forest School One

and emotions run high
as we battle to save

yet another orphaned baby orang-utan.