Gibbons released into a reserve

27/12/2006 00:00:00 On February 19th, Kalaweit Gibbon Conservation released a gibbon family, Pio (male), Jessy (female) and their son Esther into a special reserve. This proved very stressful for all concerned! Unfortunately their first night in the forest was terrible. Thunderstorms started at 9pm, and the rain didn’t stop until the next day at 4am. By that time Pio was missing, and Jessy and Esther seemed panicked. The staff feared the worst as he was used to sleeping in a wooden shelter. The next day, Jessy and their son disappeared too and it was thought that the release had been a total failure. The gibbons hadn’t visited their feeding. There was a small ray of hope as Jessy had been seen feeding on wild figs previously. The reserve, created in association with One Voice, no longer contains any wild gibbons, so Kalaweit is hoping to repopulate the forest. But on March 6th, a female’s song attracted the team’s attention. The Kalaweit staff immediately headed towards the singing that was resonating over the canopy. After a few minutes in a boat in the flooded forest, they found Pio and Jessy.

The next family was scheduled for release at the beginning of April 2007. However, to ease the gibbon’s transition, a big cage will be built in the forest, to put the gibbons in it for 3 weeks before opening the door.

KALAWEIT SUMATRA
The Siamang couple (Zorro and Sonia) that we released a year ago are doing fine, but they are still being fed once a week. We are still collecting information about the procedure to adopt with Siamang releases.

Anyone wishing to sponsor the Kalaweit gibbon project, or to find out about volunteering opportunities with the Kalaweit gibbons, click here.