Officials and experts have spotted the only known Albino Orangutan in the world, alive and well in a rainforest in Borneo.
A year after the Albino Orangutan was released into the wild, experts found her alive.
Alba, the one and only known Albino Orangutan in the world, is a blue-eyed orangutan that is covered entirely in fuzzy white hair.
She was taken in 2017 from a cage where she was being kept as a pet by villagers in Indonesia’s Borneo, a place called Kalimantan.
Alba was released back in the wild in the last months of 2018.
This week, the Borneo Orangutan Survival Foundation said Alba was spotted as they were monitoring 3 other orangutans that were recently released in the wild.
Indra Exploitasia, the environment ministry’s director of biodiversity conservation, said, “After we learned that she can build nests, foraged independently and is no longer dependent on human assistance we concluded that she can survive in the forest.”
The rescue of Alba was a piece of good news for the critically endangered species, which has seen a dramatic drop in their population numbers due to habitat loss that was caused by forest logging, paper, palm oil, and mining.
Orangutans are also attacked by plantation workers and villagers.
They are also being captured by poachers who sell them as pets in the black market.