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Queenstown wildlife cameraman Alex Hubert with Chen Chen the orangutan
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Chen Chen is nine, has one eye and lives with 35 teenagers in a Borneo jungle.
He’s an orangutan and Queenstown-based wildlife cameraman Alex Hubert will make him into a worldwide star.
The orangutan’s parents were shot by loggers illegally clearing the way for palm plantations – crops producing oil for consumer goods and biofuels.
Hubert, 40, has been shooting the second series of Orangutan Island, a documentary made by Natural History New Zealand for Animal Planet.
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Relaxing at home with dog Jake
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Orangutan Island traces the lives of rescued orphan orangutans being prepared for life in the wilds of Central Kalimantan, an Indonesian province in Borneo.
After spending four months observing them on a 20-hectare rehabilitation island, Hubert has been accepted as family.
“As soon as you meet them and look into their eyes, you have them around your neck and fall in love with them,” he says.
“When I first got there, I crouched down beside a group of them. One picked up a seed from the ground, put it in my hand and pushed it towards my mouth – as if I should eat it.
“It blows you away. Then you realise they’re endangered and are being killed at an incredible rate.”
Orangutan Island is Hubert’s first wildlife doco – he says it’s his best job yet.
Since starting with Dunedin-based Natural History, Hubert has chased pirates in the South China Sea and mountain biked in the Andes, filming TV programmes.
He says filming in Borneo’s wet season knocked him for six.
“The environment out there is incredibly tough – you have 45deg heat, 95 per cent humidity. There are parasites, snakes, spiders, people are dying from malaria.”
It’s a change from Queenstown, where he landed 10 years ago after working in the United Kingdom.
He’s back home for a breather with wife Tina and dog Jake but returns to Borneo shortly for the final month of filming.
Hubert appears on TV One’s Sunday programme this weekend. The first series of Orangutan Island airs in NZ on Animal Planet next Wednesday at 9.30pm.
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