The Sabah Orangutan Rehabilitation Project was originally proposed in 1961 by P.F. Burgess, then the Deputy Conservator of Forests. He was also responsible for the establishment of a game  branch  within  the  Forest Department and the drafting of the Fauna Conservation Ordinance, 1963.

Soon afterwards, Barbara Harrisson, wife of the Curator of Sarawak Museum, began to rescue young orangutans being kept locally as pets, and the idea grew of training these animals to fend for themselves so that they might re-adapt to life in the wild. In 1962, with the backing of the newly formed World Wildlife Fund, Harrisson visited Sabah (then North Borneo) and reported that orangutan were rare and threatened with extinction. In Sabah it is a totally protected animal under the Fauna Conservation Ordi­nance, 1963.

 

	1965 - Renjer mergastua yang pertama Kapis Siridion dan Orang Utan Amit. 1965 - First game ranger, Kapis Siridion and Orang Utan Amit
Waden mergastua pertama En. G.S De Silva dan ahli Botani terkenal W. Meijer First game warden Mr. G.S De Silva and famous botanist W. Meijer