Protecting, conserving, collaborating: the Borneo Orangutan Survival Foundation

Hello! Happy World Orangutan Day! I am Lynn Y., Lead Keeper of Orangutans at Zoo Atlanta. I have had the privilege of caring for orangutans at Zoo Atlanta for over 18 years and have a great appreciation for their unique and intelligent personalities. They amaze me daily with how smart and curious they are. We call them “little engineers” because they are so good at making tools and solving problems, especially when we have hidden food inside something for them to find.

Throughout the years, I have also gotten to know some of the passionate people who are working in Indonesia to rescue, rehabilitate and release orangutans into protected forest areas. I am honored to champion the Bornean Orangutan Survival (BOS) Foundation, which is one of the projects supported in 2026 by Zoo Atlanta’s Mabel Dorn Reeder Conservation Endowment Fund.

The BOS mission is to rescue and rehabilitate Bornean orangutans who are in immediate danger and reintroduce them into protected rainforests, while also protecting and restoring their wild habitat in collaboration with local communities. Zoo Atlanta has a long-standing history with BOS – we have supported them twice before, and their CEO also visited the Zoo in 2018 to learn more about how we care for orangutans, as well as share with us the important conservation work they are doing in Borneo. I was also fortunate to visit BOS in 2023 to see firsthand the impact they have by protecting orangutans and preserving the forests as well as collaborating with the Indonesian community.

Bornean orangutans face population decline due to habitat destruction, habitat fragmentation, forest fires, and illegal hunting. The BOS Foundation addresses these issues through four core strategies: (1) Orangutan rescue, rehabilitation, reintroduction, and long-term post-release monitoring; (2) Conservation of wild orangutan populations and habitats; (3) Sanctuary care for non-releasable orangutans; and (4) Sustainable community development. The organization has 1.1 million acres of rainforest under its protection, contributing significantly to Bornean orangutan and sun bear conservation. When young orphaned orangutans are discovered in local homes as pets, in transit for the international pet-trade, or orphaned due to oil palm plantation conflict and deforestation, the BOS Foundation uses human caregivers to teach the orangutans all the skills they need to survive in the wild that they would have received from their orangutan mothers. Once the orangutans are old enough and/or medically recovered enough, BOS releases them back to the wild. BOS has returned over 900 orangutans to protected forests in the past 30 years.

BOS operates two major rehabilitation centers, Nyaru Menteng and Samboja Lestari, where both facilities rescue, rehabilitate, and prepare displaced or orphaned orangutans for reintroduction into the wild. BOS has over 350 orangutans in their care, and 240 of them are housed at Nyaru Menteng alone. Unfortunately, the area around Nyaru Menteng, once a remote patch of land in Central Borneo and home to BOS’s largest rehabilitation center and largest Forest School, began developing into a national tourism destination. To continue the sustainability of the rehabilitation center, BOS needed to move to a more remote plot of land that would provide better and safer security for the orangutans, the staff, and the people.  This new complex is called Nyaru Menteng II and will improve the welfare of each orangutan, which ensures better outcomes for their reintegration into the wild.

The supported project through the Zoo’s Mabel Dorn Reeder Conservation Fund assists BOS with building a new rehabilitation center at Nyaru Menteng II by constructing island habitats that may serve as pre-release habitats for orangutans preparing for freedom or permanent sanctuary homes for non-releasable individuals. These semi-natural environments improve welfare by enabling orangutans to display natural behaviors in settings that closely resemble their wild habitat, which helps prepare them for future release. BOS strives to rehabilitate and release all orangutans who are brought to the center, but sometimes due to medical or physical issues, some orangutans cannot be returned to the forest permanently. Therefore, the sanctuary islands provide a naturalistic environment for the non-releasable orangutans.

By visiting Zoo Atlanta, you are directly supporting conservation efforts both locally and globally. Zoo Atlanta has made a strong commitment to work to preserve species and their native habitats, and by visiting and learning about the orangutans at Zoo Atlanta, you have joined the effort to protect them in the wild.

(Photo: Lynn Y.)

Lynn Y.
Lead Keeper, Orangutans