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Gibbons used to live in the forests on Phuket 20 years ago, before they were poached to extinction. The project intends to bring the gibbons back to Phuket by reintroducing rehabilitated gibbons so they can repopulate the forest. Only two releases have been done in this area until now: one in 1992, consisting in a pair with two juveniles children, and one in 2001, with a group of four juveniles.

Rehabilitation involves putting healthy captive gibbons into a series of environments, which promote the physical health and natural behavior necessary for survival in the wild. This is done at the moment in two phases, which consist of an in-cage rehabilitation phase and an acclimatization period in conjunction with release in the rainforest. To be successful, not only must the gibbon behave naturally, it is also crucial that the reintroduction habitat be suitable and protected from poaching, encroachment and logging. If humans are living in the area, a consultation and education process is vital. Information to people frequenting the forest (visitors) is also important. The strategy used for this release consisted in training the gibbons for a long time in cage and create a pair; in the present case we can release an entire family, male, female and a juvenile. The gibbons were then moved to an isolated cage in the forest at a height of 20 meters, were they stayed for ten days to acclimatize to the surrounding. The door of the cage had been finally opened on 27th of September so that the gibbons could explore the surrounding and go back to the cage. After a period of one to two weeks depending on the conditions of the animals, the door will be closed, not allowing the gibbons to go inside anymore. Food will still be distributed around the cage ¡V soft release is the name given to this kind of releases - for a period of about one month, but will be reduced at the same time until the gibbons will have to find wild resources to survive. ¡qoriginal from Dr. Suwit Pannadee, WAR, Thailand.¡r

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