JAKARTA: Animal activists are in morning after the world's first Orangutan successfully released back into the wild died of what appears to have been a snake bite. Semeru, the first male zoo-born orangutan in the world to be released back into the wild, has died from a deadly snake bite. A Sumatran Orangutan born at Perth Zoo in 2005, Semeru was released into the Indonesian jungle in November 2011 as part of a reintroduction program to establish a new population of the critically endangered species in the wild. But overnight, Indonesian trackers who monitored his movements found the seven-year old orangutan's body in a night nest they had watched him build the previous afternoon, the Australian Associated Press (AAP) reports. “Semeru had a beautiful nature and was a beacon of hope for this critically endangered species,” Dr Peter Mawson, Perth Zoo's director of Animal Health and Research told AAP. “Many of the keepers at Perth Zoo remember the day Semeru was born here and his parents and siblings still live with us. It is a huge blow to lose him.” Dr. Mawson said a vet in Sumatra had found two puncture marks on Semeru's upper back, which she concluded were most likely from a pit viper. Semeru was the first male zoo-born orangutan ever to be released into the wild. He would have turned eight in June. He became the first zoo-born male orangutan in the world to be released into the wild, following in the footsteps of another history-making Perth Zoo orangutan, Temara. Temara became the worlds first zoo-born orangutan to be released into the wild when she was successfully released in the same area in Sumatra in November 2006. BN
