Orangutan Island is an American docu-reality television series created by Judith Curran and produced by NHNZ in the style of Meerkat Manor, that blends more traditional documentary filming with dramatic narration.
The show focuses on a group of orphaned orangutans at the Nyaru Menteng Orangutan Rescue and Rehabilitation Centre that are raised to go against their nature to live together in a cooperative society.
The series premiered in the USA on Animal Planet on 2 November, 2007. There are 13 half-hour episodes in the first season, with a second season due to premiere in the USA in the third quarter of 2008.
Orangutan Island premiered in South Africa on DStv's Animal Planet channel on Sunday 13 July 2008, at 12h25. Double episodes air back-to-back each week.
Repeats
(Double episodes)
Sundays: 19h00
Mondays: 01h45
Tuesdays: 07h50, 11h30, 18h00
Wednesdays: 00h50
Synopsis
A desperate struggle for survival is raging deep in the heart of Borneo's forests. Illegal logging is rapidly destroying the Bornean orangutans' last stronghold in the wild — leaving hundreds of orangutan babies orphaned and homeless.
Their future seems bleak but a ground-breaking project provides real hope for ensuring the survival of the species.
Meet the 35 classmates of Forest School 103 at the Nyaru Menteng Orangutan Rescue and Rehabilitation Centre. These precocious red-haired "children of the forest" will get the opportunity, through this innovative project led by Lone Droscher-Nielsen and her team, to live wild on a protected island.
Orangutan Island is the foundation for the largest primate rescue project in the world.
For the first time on television, watch these orangutan children as they form their own society.
Unlike wild orangutans, who live mostly solitary lives traveling across endless territory every day, this group will be confined to an island where they will need to learn to live together in a community, something that's not natural for them.
Confinement issues lead to battles for dominance. Learning to bond with other orangutans, forming friendships and sharing knowledge are all issues they will face here but would not normally experience in the wild.
Join the orangutans as they enter a whole new realm of real life education. Watch as Lone and her team transfer Cha Cha, Saturnus, Daisy, Chen Chen and all their classmates to the island.
Experience the emotional roller-coaster as they each struggle to adjust to the transition from the Centre. Find out if they will remember the skills they were taught to survive, whether foraging for food or avoiding dangerous predators.
Just as important, will the bonds they formed while at Nyaru Menteng survive and serve as a basis for creating a society or will issues of dominance prove too destructive?
The social and lovable Cha Cha goes into a crisis on her first day away from the Centre. Hamlet tries to exert his dominance over Jasmine, but feisty Daisy and the mischievous "Bandit Boys" come to her rescue.
These highly intelligent, gentle apes share 97 percent of our DNA making them some of our closest relatives. Yet they are as different in personality and needs as we are.
Can they overcome their traumatized childhoods and cope without constant human support?
Go with them on their journey to adulthood as they struggle to form their own society and learn how to live free on Orangutan Island.
After being rescued as tiny babies when their mothers were killed, they have graduated from rehabilitation centres where they have been taught wild living skills by human caretakers, but there is no true wilderness left for them to live in.
They are bought to Halfway Island into a more crowded environment which forces them to challenge thousands of years of innate behaviour and learn new behaviours while adpating to their brand new world.
Orangutans are by nature among the most charismatic characters in the animal kingdom - comic, endearing, inquisitive and enormously popular with people.
This series follows the group of newcomers to the island of orangutans and observes their progress and everyday dramas.