Fourteen orang-utans from Indonesia's Kalimantan are set to begin the journey back to their home and wild habitat on Thursday morning after most had been held in official captivity for six years in Thailand.
Twelve steel cages have been prepared to transport them from Khao Prathab Chang Wildlife Breeding Centre in Chom Bung district of Ratchaburi province to Bangkok, 100 kilometres away.
Thirteen of the orang-utans had been kept in the breeding centre since 2009 after they had been left on the roadside in Phuket. Authorities assumed traffickers had failed to get them to a private zoo. One baby orang-utan was born at the wildlife breeding centre.
DNA tests showed that they originated from Kalimantan on Borneo island. According to the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (Cites), the confiscated wildlife must be sent back to the country of origin.
Banphote Maleehual, chief of the wildlife breeding centre, said on Wednesday the apes would be kept in the transport cages for a while so that they could become familiar with their surroundings. Transport from Ratchaburi to Bangkok would happen at night to reduce tension on the journey, he said.
Trucks would carry the primates in the Indonesia-sponsored cages from the wildlife centre at 3am and they were expected to reach Bangkok at about 6am.
Their flight to Kalimantan was set to leave the air force airport at Don Muang at 8am. It was reported that the primates would be quarantined for four weeks at the Taman Safari park on Java island and rehabilitated at an orang-utan rehabilitation centre in Kalimantan before being returned to the wild.
It will be the third time that orang-utans found in Thailand had been shipped back to Indonesia since 2006. The first time, there were 48 of the primates. The second lot of four was sent back in 2007.