Meet Yola

Volunteer Paloma introduces Yola, a rescued young orangutan at International Animal Rescue's emergency centre in Ketapang, West Kalimantan.

Yola arrived at the emergency orangutan centre in December 2009.

She is around 5 years old and was with a family who said they found her around some land that had been burned to make way for a palm oil plantation. It is likely that her mother was killed and eaten by the palm oil workers (which happened with Helen and Jera). Yola was found alone and disorientated.

When she arrived at the Centre she was very stressed, screaming a lot and showing abnormal behavior. She was placed in the enclosure next to Helen and after some weeks the two began playing with each other, touching and passing things like leaves and sacks, through the bars. At first, Yola didn't seem to have much confidence in Helen, and their interaction could get quite aggressive, but Yola settled in after a while and they became a lot friendlier with each other.

On completion of the new large enclosures, Yola, Helen and Jera were transferred and are now enjoying having much more room. As we hoped, Yola spends most of her time in the higher levels of the enclosure and has been observed playing through the bars with Jera, a male orangutan of the same age, who also spends most of his time at the top of the cage. This bodes well for when Yola, Jera and Helen are released back into the wild, which we think will be very soon!

Meet Jera

Volunteer Paloma introduces Jera, a rescued young orangutan at International Animal Rescue's emergency centre in Ketapang, West Kalimantan.

Jera is a male of about 5 years old who, like Helen, was rescued from the burning of the land for the oil palm plantation.

Jera is pretty wild and we think he will be able to survive in the forest on his own, so we try to have as little contact as possible with him.

The idea is to release him as soon as possible into a safe area in the forest along with Helen!

Meet Sigit and Bunga

Volunteer Paloma introduces Sigit and Bunga, two rescued infant orangutans at International Animal Rescue's emergency centre in Ketapang, West Kalimantan.

Sigit, a male of only about 1 1/2 years old, arrived during the summer of 2009. A Chinese man brought him to the centre wearing baby clothes. He had bought him a few months before but had gradually become concerned about the orangutan’s welfare and decided to hand him over to the centre. Sigit is very inquisitive and likes to investigate every thing around him.

When we take him out to play, first of all he looks around and then gradually he starts to investigate the grass, the leaves and every little stick that is lying around, and sometimes he tries to climb the trees too. He sometimes plays with Melky and Bunga but he's still a baby and soon gets tired and runs to a keeper for protection!

Bunga, a female of about 2 1/2 years old, arrived at the centre in November 2009. A family called us and asked us to go and pick her up from their house. They said that they had found Bunga three months earlier and had decided to keep her. She was in a cage in the garden of the house but apparently sometimes they let her out.

Bunga is extremely affectionate: when she goes outside to play, for the first few minutes she just clings on to the carer (that's me!) and she doesn't want to let go. But then after a while she starts to investigate and gets more confident. She's even started to climb the trees a bit too, in a more ladylike way than Melky! - and started to play with him too.

Some times she plays with Sigit too but this play is more gentle because Sigit is a bit smaller than Bunga. She loves to play with the tub and with the tyres that are hanging from the trees, but she always keeps one eye on her carer!