Letters From the Field ~ A Blog

This adorable 1-year-old female orangutan is Gus, short for Gustine. Her Indonesian name is Ting San. She was confiscated near the border of Malaysia in Indonesia. Her mother was shot and killed by a poacher who wanted to sell Gus in the black market as a pet. This is an all too common occurrence for orangutans. Luckily, the word leaked out about the sale of Gus in the black market and she was confiscated by Indonesian officials. Since the confiscation happened so close to Malaysia, they brought her to Matang Wildlife Center.

She was the focal point of my practicum. My priority at the center was feeding, rehabilitating, and generally never taking my eyes away from her for a second. Watching her is more than a full-time job. From the first two pictures, you can see her curious and sometimes unruly behavior. She is constantly grabbing, climbing, and touching everything she sees. Aside from those behaviors, she also loves running (quadupedially knuckle walking, I mean) away from me. It amazed me how much Gus acted so similar to a young human child. The only major difference is she doesn't understand commands like "stop that" or "come here" like a child would. So basically it was like watching a young child that had no idea what you were saying so that there was nothing you could do.

My feeding duties included waking her up at 7:30 a.m. from her night time enclosure and taking her to the young orangutan area. This area has small platforms and ropes that lead to smaller trees for the young orangutans to climb and play on. The area is enclosed by a 6 foot high fence so they can wander and play, but not leave.

After bringing her to the area, I would give her a bottle of milk . She almost always lay on her back and used her feet to hold the bottle (see 3rd photo below). After she finished her bottle, she would play on the ropes while I prepared her breakfast of ripe fruits, such as papaya, watermelon, and other assorted fruits. I would scatter the food around different parts of the play area so that she had to find the fruit. Morning time was usually the best for me. Gus was sill in a calm mood because she just woke up and was in a fairly confined area.

After about an hour or two in the young orangutan area, I let her outside the fence and took her to the bigger trees that abutted the center. These trees were over 75 feet high and most of the time she climbed all the way to the top. This part of her rehabilitation is extremely important because orangutans spend more than 80% of their everyday lives in trees. If orangutans don't learn to climb and get used to the trees, they are not going to survive in the wild.

I would have to say that this part of the rehabilitation process wasn't very exciting for me. Basically I had to keep my eyes on her constantly, high in the trees, to make sure she didn't fall. Sometimes she would spend up to 2 hours in the trees and I would get the worst neck cramps from staring up at her. It is difficult for humans to try to teach orangutans which branches to use and which weak branches to avoid. Unfortunately, the orangutans have to figure this out on their own. During my watchfulness on the ground, I never had to catch her. She only cracked a branch once and managed to catch herself on the branch below. The sound and the commotion did make my heart skip a few beats.

At around 1:00 p.m., or after she was done climbing and playing in the tall trees, I walked her out to one of the platforms the center has set up in the jungle. The platforms are a place where food can be placed by humans to supplement the wild-released orangutans. This is extremely important because so much of the protected forests are not very big and there are not enough fruiting trees in the area that will provide orangutans with the amount of food they need. Placing food on the platforms is a way to make sure the orangutans can always find food when it is scarce.

The walk to the platform in the jungle took about an hour and a half with Gus holding tightly to my hand. She would have her afternoon feeding on the platform. Walking her to the platform lets her know exactly where the platform is and how to get there. This is an important step for her to know for when she is released in the future.

After spending time at the platform, I walked her back to the Center and put her in the young orangutan area. This finally gave me a chance to sit down and just observe her playing and climbing. At 5:00 p.m., she had her final feeding in the area and then I would put her in her night time enclosure.