Orangutan filmed using canopy bridge for first time

The young male orangutan paused halfway across the bridge to look down at the road and at the camera before proceeding, according to multiple reports. Conservationists built the canopy bridge in 2024 in the Pakpak Bharat district over the Lagan-Pagindar road, an essential route for local people but a barrier for animals. Natural crossing was impossible for wildlife, said Erwin Alamsyah Siregar, director of Tangguh Hutan Khatulistiwa (TaHuKah).

The Sumatran Orangutan Society (SOS) and TaHuKah had been monitoring camera-trap footage of the bridge for two years. "You should have heard the cries of delight from the team. After two long years, it's finally happened," said Helen Buckland, chief executive of SOS.

The road split the orangutan population into two groups: one at Siranggas wildlife reserve and the other at Sikulaping protection forest. There are approximately 350 orangutans in the area. Buckland noted that orangutans have a very slow life history and are prone to genetic bottlenecks.

If kept in small groups, they will be weakened by inbreeding until functionally extinct. Other species such as black giant squirrels, long-tailed macaques, and agile gibbons used the bridge before the orangutan. Orangutans are the largest arboreal mammal and spend more than 90% of their time in the forest canopy.

There are only 14,000 Sumatran orangutans left, making them one of the world's most threatened apes. "Witnessing a Sumatran orangutan confidently crossing that bridge is living proof that we need not sever the forest's lifeline in order to build our communities' own. Modernisation does not have to mean destruction," said Franc Bernhard Tumanggor, head of the Pakpak Bharat district.