Orangutan Island

Introduction

The natural habitat of the Orangutan, the rainforests of Borneo, is disappearing, due to the activity of man, be it logging, mining or hunting. Primarily a nomadic species, a lot of young Orangutans are ripped from the bosom of their mothers and kept as pets in appalling conditions.

But things are changing slowly, thanks to a lone pioneer called Lone Droscher-Neilsen. Lone founded the Nyrang Menteng Rescue and Rehabilitation Centre in 1999, the largest primate reserve project in the world. With her team at the Borneo Orangutan Survival Foundation (or BOS for short), Lone is embarking on a groundbreaking experiment to relocate 35 young Orangutans on a protected 100 acre island, from which this series takes its name.

Lone and her team have reared these primates from a young age but recognises that they need the opportunity to live in the wild. It won't be easy though as they need to learn new skills and also relinquish the human contact that some have come to rely on to get over the trauma of their early lives. Orangutans are a solitary nomadic species, but the experiment here is to attempt to get the young primates to live as a community, forging friendships and bonds that will stand them in good stead.

Overall

This is an interesting series that is clearly aimed at children and increasing their understanding of a species that is so close to us that you can recognise traits and behaviours quite clearly identical to our own sometimes. One of the most interesting things about this series is watching the group dynamics and how the community evolves through the different characters and how the bonds forged by the youngsters are so strong as to repel the unwelcome intruder of a much larger and stronger member of their species who comes looking to dominate the young group.

It is quite fascinating to watch as the characters of certain Orangutans become more recognisable and you no longer need the narrator or on-screen captions to know who the focus of the camera is at a given point. It's heart warming to see this experiment to create a community evolve, but it isn't without heartbreak as when one of the Orangutan's goes missing and is found drowned (Orangutans can't swim and this one was thought to have fallen from a tree into the water during a storm).

Sadly this release came to Reviewer Towers on a DVD-R with only 3 of the 22-minute episodes on it. There is no menu and it just autoplays through the three included episodes. Therefore no extras to be seen and missing the remaining 19 episodes doesn't give you a feel for where this series is going. Not a bad start though.

One for the kids definitely and not a bad concept.