OSCAR
Potential candidate!
Since joining a full day’s forest school, Oscar has demonstrated good ‘forest skills’ improvement. He also shows great improvement in nest-buiding skills. He can make a good nest high above the trees. His good social behaviour with orangutans has also been witnessed when he shares his night nest with Terra. Additionally, Oscar knows some dangerous animals/insects in the forest such as snakes, caterpillars and bees. He also knows other forest inhabitants, such as which animals are poisonous and which ones he can play with.
TERRA
Potential candidate!
Not only Oscar, but also Terra has also greatly improved her forest skills since joining forest school at Tembak. She can make nests, although sometimes she sleeps in one nest with Oscar (yes, there is good social behaviour between her and Oscar). She is also good at finding forest food and she knows at least 20 natural foods at forest school.
Based on the orangutans observation data compiled by our behaviour staff, Oscar and Terra have become potential candidates to be released in 2019.
MAMAT
Giving chances to others.
As one of the ‘unreleasable’ orangutans at SOC, Mamat has joined forest school at Tembak for almost 4 years. His forest skills develop very slowly. He very rarely climbs the trees and spends most of his forest school time on the forest floor, but he can find and eat some forest foods, such as rattan shoots and he occasionally explores the forest. Mamat also has a good social behavior with all orangutans at the school. He likes to invite play with other orangutans. On the other hand, he does influence the other orangutans’ behaviours and not always for the better! With the presence of Mamat, the other orangutans tend to spend their school time playing with Mamat. Due to this influence and the analyzed data from our behaviour and caretaker staff at Tembak, we believe it is better Mamat does experience fewer full forest school days, as this will then give a chance for the others to develop their skills in the forest.
We really hope that the sanctuary collaboration program with the government (especially Danau Sentarum National Park) for the ‘unreleasable orangutans’ can be realized soon so that Mamat and the other unreleasable orangutans can live permanently in the sanctuary. Some of the biggest cheekpadders may go to the big project of Pak Willie in East Kalimantan where they can get some big islands to liveon, with only other rescued male orangutans, so they have no reason to fight over females.
MONA
I’m ready!
In 2018, Mona showed great improvement at the Sintang Rescue and Rehabilitation Centre. She is very close to Aming, but right now she doesn’t cry when they are apart. At the beginning, when both of them stayed in the same night enclosure with the babies, Aming always took very good care of Mona. When the others did naughty things to Mona, Aming did his best to protect her. But right now the situation is totally different; Mona is no longer a baby girl. She grows and becomes a tough girl! She no longer cries when she is apart from Aming. Yet, their social behaviour is still stong, as if they are brother and sister.
Her skills develop very well. She could solve any enrichments in a short time, even when the food is hidden very carefully and with difficult wrapping. She likes all fruits and veggies and could make simple nests by collecting leaves. These are the signs that she is ready to go to the next step to join the forest school as soon as possible.
VICTORIA
Victoria’s Milestone!
This year is a great year for Victoria. She learned many things during her rehabilitation at SOC. Even though she is a naughty little girl, or maybe because of that, Victoria is very active and smarter than other orangutans her age. She can already make simple nests and has good problem solving capabilities when playing with the enrichments. Even other orangutans watch and imitate her skills to get food hidden in various enrichments.
The Jerora forest school has officially started to operate a few months ago and SOC relocated the first group of orangutans there. One of these lucky ones is Victoria. This is the first time she goes to forest school since SOC rescued her.
This is a great opportunity for her to develop her survival skills in the forest. When the door to the tunnel leading towards the primary forest of the forest school opened, she immediately and enthusiastically explored the forest canopy, looking for forest food and trying many different kinds of food.
Even though she already had developed good enough nest-building skills by using the daily leaves at the overnight enclosure, she still needs to learn a lot about nesting skills in the canopy. What trees do not have ants? Which branches and leaves are the best to use? During her first month in the virgin forest she slept high up the trees but did not make any nests, she just held on to the branches close to the trunk of a tree. We hope that soon she will try to make the proper nests high up in the tree canopy.
We are monitoring Victoria, and all her friends, every day to see the progress she is making. It is not easy to make movies of Victoria up there in the trees, but we will try to send our supporters at Victoria Shanghai Academy some clips after we get a better video camera with a tele-lens.
HOPE
We are still hoping for Hope to leave the quarantine area soon. Every few days we call the Prodia laboratory in Jakarta to find out when we will get her final TB culture test. Without that we cannot move her because those are the rules of the Ministry of Forestry for orangutan rehabilitants. But since Amory is also waiting for his test results we have put them together and they like sharing the hammock and play with each other.
Hope is quite active, swinging a lot in her enclosure and keeping a keen eye out for when feeding time approaches. Different orangutans are afraid of differing things, perhaps a lot like people. Maybe this has something to do with some past traumatic experiences. They can be afraid of either inanimate objects or living things. One day, just a little spider walked through Hope’s enclosure. First, Hope looked shocked and made a loud noise as if she was very afraid of the spider. Then, she took a piece wood from branches full of leaves the caretakers give to them every day and hit the spider over and over till the spider was gone. We wonder if she once was bitten by a poisonous spider when she was still living with her mother up there in the trees? Anyway, we thought it was great of Hope to overcome her fear and actually use a tool to deal with the problem!
Sometimes the caretakers need to teach orangutans to have fear of dangers, for example, using rubber imitation snakes and wiggling them and looking afraid of the snake. Then the orangutans understand that snakes are to be feared and hopefully they will avoid the snakes in the forest after that.
AMORY
Seeking attention!
Yes, Amory is one of the orangutans at SOC who likes seeking the caretakers’ attention, especially the woman caretakers! When cleaning the enclosures every morning, Amory likes to poke the caretakers and he also likes to be carried piggyback by them.
During his quarantine phase, Amory has already shown great improvement. He can make simple sleeping nests by collecting the leaves in the hammock every afternoon. His diet has totally changed from a human diet to an orangutan diet. His social behaviour with the other orangutans, especially with Hope, is also very good as both of them are the same age and are staying in one quarantine enclosure.
LITTLE LIESJE
Grows up!
Baby Liesje grows very well and very healthily, due to the care and love of her mother, Tanjung. As she already has 4 teeth, nowadays she could to eat some fruit given by the caretakers, such as banana and papaya but the milk from her mother is still the most important for her. She also begins to play by herself but still not too far from her mother.
As Liesje grows so well, we hope she will soon get the chance to join her mother and go to forest school for the first time. With this opportunity, her mother, Tanjung, can introduce and teach her how to live in the forest. As Tanjung is one of the potential orangutans to be released, it is a great chance for both of them to be released in 2019 or 2020. We hope so!
TOM
Where is my cloth?
Do you remember Tom being inseparable from his cloth?
Since being kept as ‘pet’ by a family and for the first 2 months at Sintang Orangutan Rescue and Rehabilitation Centre, our caretakers couldn’t separate the cloth from Tom.
Everyday our caretakers always did their best to rehabilitate him, starting from changing his diet, treating his parasites and also, bit by bit, changing his ‘inseparable cloth’ with leaves.
For the first 2 months, it was quite difficult to separate Tom from the cloth and he always cried out loudly when the babysitters, Eni and Grace, took the cloth away from him. But now, he does not need the cloth to be with him night and day. He also enjoys playing with leaves every afternoon that are given by our caretakers. We are very glad about this breakthrough!
Our babysitters also frequently take Tom out from the enclosure and introduce him to the trees. Tom is still affraid to climb high alone. He prefer to climb in the lower canopy of trees. Besides, he likes to be carried piggyback by the babysitters, especially the female babysitters Eni and Yessi.
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