BOS

BOS

BOS is a NGO (non government organization) non profit organization in central Kalimantan aimed to help orangutans. BOS stands for Borneo’s Orangutan Survival. BOS was first founded by Dr Willie Smits in 1991. In 1991 Dr Willie Smits was walking in a market in Balikpapan (East of Kalimantan) when he saw a little sad female baby orangutan in a cage. Later on he found her on the rubbish heap and he took her home, and took care of her, until she was healthy again. A few days later he was given another baby male orangutan, and he got more and more orangutans. So he now had a foundation called “Balikpapan Orangutan Society”. But later on in 1994 it was renamed to Borneo Orangutan Survival. BOS is in Jl. Tjilik Riwut km 29 in central Kalimantan. BOS is a foundation to help all orangutans. BOS takes baby orangutans that were kept illegally as pets in people’s houses, and that were mistreated. BOS takes these baby orangutans to help them, they make them healthy and care for them, and then they little by little introduce them to the wild. And even try to help them break bad habits that they might have learned with the people they lived, like for example eating and drinking human unhealthy food and drinks. Later on as the baby Orangutans grow up, they are more and more in the wild with the other orangutans, and then when they are old enough they move them to a little island only for orangutans, which is not allowed to be cut down, and there they come and watch them once in a while and bring them food. Not only do they take orangutans from people, but they also rescue them from poachers, or from a newly cut down forests, since many forests in central Kalimantan are being cut down for palm oil reasons. People even kill the mother orangutan, and even more male orangutans, just to get the baby orangutan, to sell it. Sometimes if people are honest, if they see a orangutan in a wide empty space which was once a forest, they might call BOS, and BOS will come and take that orangutan to the foundation to help them recover and re introduce them to the wild.

By: Dorotea M.G

REFERENCES;

Borneo Orangutan Survival (Wikipedia) Orangutan movies from BOS