KOTA KINABALU: Newborn gibbon Nabalu and his parents may take more than six months to be rehabilitated before their release into the wild, says the Gibbon Conservation Society (GCS).
Its operations director Ana Jonessy said that while six months is the appropriate age for the release of a family unit, this will only proceed once the seven criteria outlined in the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) are met.
The same rule under IUCN’s guidelines for the rehabilitation and translocation of gibbons applies to Nabalu, who was born on May 8, and his parents, Manis and Candyman.
Jonessy said the criteria includes brachiation (natural swinging from branch to branch), minimal time on the ground (less than 5% of the time, more than 40% in the upper canopy), proper socialisation (at least 3% of time grooming and bonding with others) and paired with a child (from a successful mating and co-parenting of offspring).
Once these criteria were fully met, a suitable release site must be identified and formally approved before the gibbons, also known as singing apes, can be rewilded, she said.
She added that in the case of Nabalu – a North Bornean gibbon species or Hylobates funereus (known locally as kalawot) – being born in captivity also fulfilled one of the criteria.
“This allows the family unit to progress to the next stage of their rehabilitation and increase their chances of survival in the wild,” Jonessy explained.
She oversees the daily operations, planning, communications, capacity building and co-designing of protocols and resourcing across both the Malaya Gibbon Rehabilitation Project (Malaya GReP) and Borneo GReP.
Earlier, there were some discrepancies in the report pertaining to Nabalu’s birth and rewilding timeframe, prompting the society to clarify on the matter.
Meanwhile, primate conservationist and researcher Holly Thompson said protecting and restoring such species needs public support, awareness and action.
“The birth of Nabalu to Candyman and Manis is testament to the exceptional care these endangered apes are receiving from the Gibbon Conservation Society in Sabah,” she said.
