Liesje is the name we have given to Tanjung’s baby. She is named after Liesbeth van der Burgt who spent time with us in Sintang as a volunteer. Liesbeth was known to her friends as Liez and the Liez centre at Jerora is named after her. With the nearing completion of the Jerora orangutan forest school that is partly built with funds from the inheritance of Liesbeth who passed away we felt it perfect timing to name this new-born little girl Liesje. The “je”-part of the name is normally added as a loving adjective in Dutch for young children. Hence we have named her Liesje. Liesje, like Liesbeth was, is special. She is the baby of Tanjung and Mamat. And Mamat is an orangutan that came totally paralyzed to our centre and the Ministry of Forestry had given up on him but he survived that first night and through years of loving care he regained most of his strength and ability to move. And move he obviously did! Now after more than 5 years of care he became a father! And although Mamat is unlikely to live completely wild after a release, his baby Liesje has a very good chance to be living back in the Bornean jungle.
Beneath is a picture of Mamat when he first came to Sintang. All he could move where his eyes, lips and jaws. And here at the right is Mamat now! An adult orangutan that can climb trees again and enjoys the Tembak Orangutan Forest School. He is still not a good climber and unlikely to return to the jungle other than in our protected forest school.But how much better a life he has now!
Liesje is very healthy and Tanjung is a great mother. Right after the birth Tanjung did not want to eat fruits for some reason, only fibrous food like rattan shoots. Liesje always clings to her mother’s long hairs except when Tanjung was hes her, which she does with great care. She takes water from the drinking nozzle and lovingly washes Liesje clean. And when Liesje sometimes cries she will tenderly pat her on her small back. And if it is raining and Liesje is in her favorite location on Tanjung’s head, Tanjung will cover her up with a big leaf!
Here is a picture of Liesje when she was just two weeks old on the back of her proud mother,Tanjung. We are still a bit careful with Tanjung and her baby since some of the boisterous and unexperienced young males in the forest school can be quite rough and careless and we will have Tanjung first show them not to fool around with her baby from the neighbouring cages first. But soon we hope to see Liesje high up there with mom in thetree canopy where she will go to in some 7 years from now. Until that time she has to learn a lot with the support from all of us. Beneath here is a picture of Liesje taken on Friday June 6th, 2018. She is always interested, starts to climb and even gave me a little squeak!
Tanjung doesnot like human females for some reason. But most of our male caretakers can approach her up close to inspect how little Liesje is doing. Doctor Jati though seems tobe extra special. When he walked up to Tanjung and asked her where Liesje was Tanjung took Liesje from behind and showed her to doctor Jati! Then he asked her “Can I check your baby Tanjung?” and unbelievably Tanjung then let him touch Liesje and Jati felt so confident with Tanjung that he was able to lift her up and hold her to check whether she was healthy, wellfed and not dehydrated and also to check on the drying umbilical cord. After confirming Liesje was inperfect condition he then carefully put Liesje back in the arms of completely relaxed Tanjung. Lovely! I feel also very privileged to be inthe inner circle of Tanjung. We will make sure to send lots of updates on how our photogenic little Liesje isdoing in the coming years. Here are some close up pictures of little Liesje that I made on Friday, June 7th. From left to right: Surprised! Curious! Tired!
We at the Sintang Orangutan Centre are very grateful for your support. We hope that Liesje can motivate many more people to help us so we can help many more orangutans in need of rescueing. Just in the last five weeks we took on the responsibility for four more orangutans! Each and every one of them is special and precious and we will do our utmost best to give them a new chance in life. The SOC team.
The Sintang Orangutan Centre is in great need of support and donations.
Please donate what you can to help the great work being done by the SOC Team.
6 orangutans released to the wild in the last 6 months.
37 still being taken care of at this moment.
More urgently needing to be rescued.
Regarding a donation, please note that we are very proud that we are a recognised Hong Kong based Charitable institution and were granted tax exemption status under section 88 of the Inland Revenue Ordinance on 23 May 2014. If you would like an official donation receipt, for donations over HK$100, please email us details of the deposit record (e.g. date and amount) via masarang.hk@gmail.com
Thank you for your consideration and support!
‘Please donate to help all the orangutans at SOC’
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