‘Pet’ orangutans rescued by Indonesian activists
Primates that villagers had kept locked in cages for years have been released
Young orangutan Utu clings to one of his rescuers after he is freed from the wooden box that has been his home for five years.
The tiny primate, covered in fuzzy auburn hair, is one of three Bornean orangutans saved in Indonesia over the past two weeks.
Environmentalists and local officials rescued Utu and another youngster, Joy, from tiny cages where they were kept as house pets in West Kalimantan on the island of Borneo.
A third orangutan named Tomang was moved from a village in the same province where he had been raiding fruit trees, angering locals.
Joy and Utu will now spend years learning to fend for themselves before being released into the wild, while Tomang has been set free in Gunung Palung National Park.
The rescues are a rare spot of bright news for the critically endangered species, after a string of fatal attacks on the great apes that have been blamed on farmers and hunters.
