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The Star
  • 7/1/2025
Born to parents who were former poaching victims, this was an extraordinary birth that was kept confidential to monitor the newborn and give the first-time parents space to bond with their offspring.

Now, Nabalu, meaning “spirit of the mountain” has been revealed publicly, a gibbon believed to be the first in the world to be born in captivity.

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00:00Born to parents who were former poaching victims, this was an extraordinary birth that was kept
00:09confidential to monitor the newborn and give the first-time parents space to bond with their
00:14offspring. Now, Nabalu, meaning Spirit of the Mountain, has been publicly unveiled as a gibbon
00:21said to be the first North Bornean gibbon, or Hylobates funerius, locally known as Kalawat.
00:27To be born in rehabilitation to parents Manis and Candyman. Since his birth on May 8th at the Borneo
00:34Gibbon Rehabilitation Project site in Kota Belud, Nabalu is like any other newborn.
00:41Nabalu birth is one of the most significant event for gibbons' rehabilitation and conservation in
00:50Malaysia. This is because his species, the Hylobates funerius, had never been breathed before
00:57in any captivity or rehabilitation setup. So, when we are able to breed Manis and Candyman,
01:04we are really excited because this means they already passed one of the important criteria
01:11for release. And then, when we know this family are able to reproduce, means we can add more
01:17population of Hylobates funerius in the wild because there are not many of them. They are
01:22in some parts of Sabah and Sarawak and Brunei and Indonesia. So, we are really excited and happy
01:29about this birth. Nabalu's parents, Candyman and Manis, were both handed over by Sabah Wildlife
01:36Department to Borneo GREP to begin their rehabilitation journey since January 17, 2023 and was paired
01:44on July 5, 2024. Initially, Candyman showed severe trauma from prolonged isolation while Manis
01:52was tensed and fearful. Candyman is now confident and alert, while Manis has become affectionate
01:58and calm. Successful gibbon rewilding requires the fulfillment of all the criteria for release
02:04based on International Union for Conservation of Nature guidelines.
02:09So, the rehabilitation process overall, it takes, you know, 5 to 15 years for each individual
02:16to be released back to the wild. Once they fulfill all the seven criteria that have been
02:21in the best practice guidelines for gibbons, rehabilitation and translocation from IUCN, then
02:28we are able to release them. But it takes a long time. They need to go to quarantine process.
02:33They need to go through, you know, years of rehabilitation, which we need to make sure they need to know how
02:42how to socialize with other gibbons, they need to know how to defend themselves, how to find food and, you know,
02:54then we need to make sure they don't have any mental illness like strategic behavior, you know, because most of the gibbons
03:00that came from a pet, they will have this mental problem, you know, where sometimes they hurt themselves,
03:09they do self-rocking, they bite their own fingers. So these are some of the challenges for us to help to treat them
03:16because some can recover, some cannot recover at all.
03:19The Gibbon Rehabilitation Projects are Malaysia's first small ape rehabilitation centers, with one established
03:26in Pahang in 2013 and Borneo Grep established in Kota Belud in 2022. Both centers' sites rescue, rehabilitate
03:35and re-wild help orphaned captive gibbons and other primates who are victims of the illegal pet trade,
03:42bushmeat and other unfortunate situations. Meanwhile, Sabah Tourism, Culture and Environment Minister,
03:49Datuk Seri Christina Liu, said the ministry, through the Sabah Wildlife Department,
03:54will support Gibbon Conservation and Rehabilitation.
04:01We from Gibbon Conservation Society would like to say thank you so much and appreciate so much the support
04:06from Dr. Christina Liu, from the Minister of Tourism and Natural Resources and also the Sabah World Department themselves,
04:16who makes things easy for us in Sabah where, you know, they give full support and that makes us able to do
04:23all the rehabilitation process to get the gibbons rehabilitated and make things smoother for us.
04:30Mariani adds, with Nabalu's birth, both Manis and Candyman have proven their readiness for rewilding,
04:36not just as individuals, but as a family unit.
04:41So by helping them creating a family, they just need to reproduce in the wild and add more population
04:48and just find a territorial, a house for themselves and live and add more population.
04:55However, a suitable release site must be identified and officially approved before they can be released into the wild.
05:02the wild
05:17journal

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