By Jacqueline Sunderland | Advisor to the CEO
Thanks to your wonderful support, the BOS Foundation Post Release Monitoring (PRM) team in the Bukit Batikap Protection Forest continues to monitor orangutans and collect data from the camera traps, and it is always exciting to see the results.
Recently the orangutans didn’t disappoint and we are delighted to share these images of female orangutan Gina as she decided to “investigate” one of the cameras. Wild animal interference with remote cameras is an issue that all researchers’ using camera traps experience. Some species are renowned for their enthusiastic interest in cameras and in some countries that is often bears. In our case, many different species take an interest in the cameras and sometimes try to move them.
Reintroduced orangutans also sometimes take a keen interest and this is because they have been rehabilitated by human caregivers and have less fear of new objects compared to wild orangutans. We anticipated this and each camera is housed in a strong steel security box and secured with a python cable. We have also tried different ways of camouflaging the cameras, which is harder than it sounds because camouflage materials can get in the way of the camera lens and this can cause the camera to continually misfire and take images of whatever is in its way.
Gina, who was released into Batikap in April 2016, spotted one of the cameras and made her way purposely towards it. The camera documented over 20 minutes of her time spent systematically “investigating” it. Fortunately, she couldn’t open the security box to access the back of the camera and we were able to retrieve the SD memory card and watch the entire sequence of her antics. Another of the cameras was also an apparently interesting item to investigate and the unidentified orangutan in this case had actually peeled away the bottom of the steel security box the camera was secured in - that is how strong these orangutans are!
Nonetheless, and despite these occasional hiccups, the cameras can be fixed or replaced thanks to your wonderful support and they can continue to provide us with these incredible insights and images of the orangutans and so many other species.
We’ll continue to report back with our new findings and in the meantime, we hope you enjoy these photo’s of Gina and some of the other forest dwellers who are intrigued with the cameras!
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