Orangutan rehabilitation programs in Borneo and Sumatra rescue orphaned individuals and work toward eventual release into protected forest.
Orangutans in rehabilitation experience welfare tradeoffs between the safety of care and the constraints of captivity. Infants experiencing maternal loss show trauma responses including clinging behavior and sleep disturbances. Learning forest skills requires extensive human guidance while maintaining enough wildness for eventual survival. Social groupings must be carefully managed as orangutans are semi-solitary. Release into protected forest involves risks from territorial conflicts with established wild orangutans. The welfare goal is eventual life as a wild animal.