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Help give orangutans like Inka a better life

Meet Inka. She‘s only eighteen months old, but already she‘s experienced a shocking amount in her short life.

When she was tiny, Inka‘s mother was viciously killed in front of her during a desperate forage for food on a palm oil plantation. With their natural habitat being destroyed daily, adult orangutans have little choice but to search for food on these plantations if they want to keep their babies alive.

Traumatised, terrified and alone, Inka‘s tiny figure was then carted off for sale on the black market.

Inka spent the next few weeks looking at life through the bars of a cage, chained at the ankle and living on scraps, with a bowl of filthy, stagnant water in the corner. She was 5 months old.

Wretched, starving and close to death, Inka was rescued just in time by a care worker from Nyaru Menteng Sanctuary in Borneo.

Seeing Inka when she first arrived at the Sanctuary was heartbreaking. She weighed only 2.5kg and it was touch and go whether she would survive. Even now, months later, she is still skinny, and too tiny to join in with the other infants during playtime. So it is vital that we ensure Inka continues to receive the very best medical care and nourishment. She is definitely growing stronger, and we hope she will soon put on weight.

Unfortunately there remain hundreds of baby orangutans who need to be rescued and cared for, just like Inka. With your generous support the Nyaru Menteng Sanctuary can not only secure their safety and nurture them back to health, but also offer them the chance to live free once again.

Only with your support can we ensure these baby orangutans continue to receive the medical care, attention and affection they so urgently require. Only with your support can the Nyaru Menteng Sanctuary help give orangutans like Inka a real future by:

  • Providing them with the best possible medical attention when they first arrive at the Sanctuary, traumatised and often seriously injured.
  • When their health improves, teaching all the things a baby orangutan needs to learn to survive - for example, how to recognise what‘s edible in the forest, how to climb, and how to avoid danger - things they‘d previously have learned from their mothers.
  • Offering them a safe place to live - a secure environment free from future threats.

Please make an urgent donation today to help us give these baby orangutans the chance to grow up in an environment free from persecution and cruelty.

  • $30 could buy a kit of life-saving malaria drugs to treat infant orangutans infected with the disease.
  • $60 could buy milk full of vitamins and minerals to give the baby orangutans all the energy they need to build up their strength and grow.
  • $125 could help cover the costs of an emergency rescue of vulnerable orangutans, including transport, vehicle fuel, maintenance costs of equipment and medical assessment on arrival to the sanctuary.
  • $250 could help pay for the emergency rescue of vulnerable orangutans, including transport and medical assessment on arrival in the sanctuary.
  • $500 could provide medical care for all of the sanctuary‘s orangutans for two days, including treating newly rescued ill and injured orangutans.
  • $1,300 could feed all 650+ hungry mouths for one day with a variety of locally sourced fruit including bananas and pineapple.

Seeing how much Inka has changed for the better in the short time she has been at the Nyaru Menteng Sanctuary makes us all hopeful for her future. But there are over 650 orangutans at Nyaru Menteng - all desperately needing food, medical care and attention like Inka.

More and more orphan orangutans are arriving every day. That is why I am asking you for an urgent donation today. With your continued support we will be able to help the orangutans at Nyaru Menteng and other animals in need. Please give as much as you can to help these beautiful animals.

On behalf of orangutans, and other animals around the world, thank you.



Margaret West 


Margaret West
Regional Director
WSPA Australia and New Zealand

P.S. As the end of tax year approaches in Australia, it‘s good to know that all donations over $2 are tax deductible.
Thank you.

To support our work online, click here. For phone donations please call WSPA Australia on 1300 13 9772 or WSPA New Zealand on 0800 500 9772.