15 Dec 2025
Donations to the International Animal Rescue orangutan programme will be matched for the remainder of this year.
Chris Simpson
Job Title
YIARI teams have so far rescued 267 orangutans at its west Borneo centre, of which 131 are living in the wild again.
An international animal welfare charity has launched a Christmas donation appeal for a “transformational” orangutan surrogacy programme.
Sussex-based International Animal Rescue (IAR) is hoping to raise £90,000 for its Orphaned Orangutans Appeal.
The surrogacy programme is run by partner organisation Yayasan International Animal Rescue Indonesia (YIARI), which pairs rescued orangutan mothers with orphaned infants at its rehabilitation centre in west Borneo.
As well as forming a familial bond with one another, the orangutan mothers provide protection to the infants and teach them natural behaviours and key survival skills such as climbing, foraging and building nests so that they may be released back into the wild.
IAR president Alan Knight said: “This programme is absolutely transformational. It gives orangutan babies a mother again and with her, a future.”
The funds will cover the costs of rehabilitation, the release of the animals into the protected rainforest and post-release monitoring.
YIARI teams have so far rescued 267 orangutans at its west Borneo centre, of which 131 are living in the wild again.
It has established eight surrogate orangutan mother/infant, with five pairs already released and living wild in Bukit Baka Bukit Raya National Park.
The first mother released into the wild as part of the surrogacy programme in 2019, an orangutan named Muria, was discovered by a monitoring team three years later giving birth to a wild-born baby of her own, Bumi, described by the charity as “living proof that love is the best remedy for even the deepest of wounds”.
Donations to the programme can be made online now, with all donations doubled until 11:59pm on 31 December.
