Eating fruit and drinking from plastic bottles, two Sumatran orangutans stared from their cages at Bangkok airport on Thursday before flying home to Indonesia, years after being smuggled into Thailand.

Poachers in Southeast Asia frequently capture the critically endangered orangutans to sell as pets, and police said four-year-olds Ung Aing and Natalee were supposed to be sold to a tourism business.

Wildlife traffickers tried to smuggle the two in via Malaysia in June 2017, but they were intercepted at the border -- along with 39 Hamilton tortoises, 12 Indian turtles and six raccoons -- after police received a tip-off about the vehicle they were in.

The pair have been living in a wildlife rescue centre in Thailand and, once back in Indonesia, will undergo a rehabilitation program before being released back into the wild in Sumatra.

Ung Aing and Natalee had to take coronavirus tests before their departure, conducted by animal experts from Bangkok's Chulalongkorn University.

Officials fed the duo bananas, coconuts and electrolytes through a small opening in their cages; hiding in hessian sacks, the animals were shy at first but eventually accepted their treats.

Thai Department of National Parks and Wildlife deputy director general Prakit Vongsrivattanakul said 69 confiscated orangutans have been sent back to Indonesia since 2006, and many have been able to return to the wild.

Even though the two orangutans are now on their way home, their future is still precarious.

Sumatran orangutans are critically endangered and their population is estimated to be fewer than 15,000.

Sumatran orangutans' habitat has drastically shrunk over the past few decades from logging, palm oil plantations and mining.

Plantation workers and villagers sometimes attack the animals for being pests.

Neighborhood stability boosts odds of survival for red squirrels
Washington DC (UPI) Dec 17, 2020 - North American red squirrels benefit from maintaining the same neighbors, year after year.

According to a new study, published Thursday in the journal Current Biology, the advantages of neighborhood stability outweighed the negative impacts of growing a year older.

Researchers also determined living near relatives offers squirrels no benefits.

"These squirrels are solitary -- each defending a territory with a 'midden' (food stash) at the center -- so we might assume they don't cooperate," lead author Erin Siracusa said in a news release.

"However, our findings suggest that -- far from breeding contempt -- familiarity with neighbors is mutually beneficial," said Siracusa, an expert in animal behavior and a professor at the University of Exeter.

Playing defense is difficult. It takes time and energy, resources that could be used to find food and potential mates. The trade-off may explain why squirrels that maintain the same neighbors tend to fare better than those who don't.

For the study, Siracusa and her research partners analyzed 22 years of data on squirrels living in the forests of Yukon, Canada, within the traditional territory of the Champagne and Aishihik First Nations.

The data was collected as part of the Kluane Red Squirrel Project, which looked at the kinship of nearby squirrels, as well as their familiarity -- how long squirrels lived alongside the same squirrels.

When researchers compared survivability and reproduction rates with the kinship and familiarity of squirrels with their neighbors, they found squirrels who kept the same neighbors were more likely to avoid death and had greater reproductive success.

Males with greater familiarity with their neighbors produced more pups, while females with greater familiarity had more of their pups survive the winter.

"It may be that, after a certain time living next to one another, squirrels reach a sort of 'agreement' on boundaries, reducing the need for aggression," Siracusa said. "Competition is the rule in nature, but the benefits identified here might explain the evolution of cooperation even among adversarial neighbors."

When looking at the risks associated with growing a year older, researchers revealed a harsh reality. Four-year-old squirrels had a 68 percent chance of surviving the following year, while five-year-old squirrels had only a 59 percent chance.

However, five-year-old squirrels who kept the same neighbors had a 74 percent chance of surviving the year.

"Although we don't have evidence of direct cooperation among familiar neighbors -- such as working together to fight off an intruder -- it's clear that neither benefits if their neighbors die," Siracusa said.

"Whatever the nature of their interactions, our study shows that even solitary species have important social relationships," Siracusa said.

Although researchers found new benefit to kinship, it is possible kinship levels are simply too low to impact the data one way or the other.

Previous studies have shown related squirrels are less likely to make aggressive rattling sounds at one another, and will sometimes even share a nest to survive the winter.

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Pakistan capital's zoo shuts after last animals moved
Islamabad (AFP) Dec 16, 2020
The only zoo in Pakistan's capital - which drew international condemnation for its treatment of lonely elephant Kaavan - closed on Wednesday after its final occupants were relocated abroad. Two Himalayan bears named Bubloo and Suzzee were the last to leave the Islamabad facility, almost three weeks after the country's only Asian elephant was flown to a wildlife sanctuary in Cambodia. "The Islamabad zoo is now completely closed for both public and officials," Saleem Shaikh, a spokesman for Paki ... read more