Potential resilience treatments for orangutans (Pongo spp.): Lessons from a scoping review of interventions in humans and other animals

TL;DR

This paper explores ways to improve the resilience of orangutans in rehabilitation to increase their chances of surviving after release into the wild.

Contribution

The study provides a scoping review of human and animal resilience interventions to suggest species-appropriate strategies for orangutan rehabilitation.

Findings

Mild and manageable interventions show the most promise for improving orangutan resilience.

Human and non-human animal resilience strategies were categorized and evaluated for applicability to orangutans.

Further research is needed to develop and test interventions that improve post-release survival rates.

Abstract

Wild orangutans (Pongo spp.) rescued from human-wildlife conflict must be adequately rehabilitated before being returned to the wild. It is essential that released orangutans are able to cope with stressful challenges such as food scarcity, navigating unfamiliar environments, and regaining independence from human support. Although practical skills are taught to orangutans in rehabilitation centres, post-release survival rates are low. Psychological resilience, or the ability to ‘bounce back’ from stress, may be a key missing piece of the puzzle. However, there is very little knowledge about species-appropriate interventions which could help captive orangutans increase resilience to stress. This scoping review summarises and critically analyses existing human and non-human animal resilience literature and provides suggestions for the development of interventions for orangutans in rehabilitation. Three scientific databases were searched in 2021 and 2023, resulting in 63 human studies and 266 non-human animal studies. The first section brings together human resilience interventions, identifying common themes and assessing the applicability of human interventions to orangutans in rehabilitation. The second section groups animal interventions into categories of direct stress, separation stress, environmental conditions, social stress, and exercise. In each category, interventions are critically analysed to evaluate their potential for orangutans in rehabilitation. The results show that mild and manageable forms of intervention have the greatest potential benefit with the least amount of risk. The study concludes by emphasising the need for further investigation and experimentation, to develop appropriate interventions and measure their effect on the post-release survival rate of orangutans.

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