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!
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