International Animal Rescue: June update from Ketapang

Another month goes by in a flash! 

by Christine Nelson

Butan's "lipstick" is a bit of a giveaway!

Time flies when you are having fun! The orangutans in the forest school group move spots almost daily to help preserve the integrity of the trees, although this proves quite difficult when there are more than thirty playful individuals! Some of the animals are still gaining confidence and stick closer to their human keepers, but it is a happy sight to see Merah, Laksmi, Butan, and Marcela appear with stained lips and tongues from eating fruit they have found for themselves in the forest.

With help from our dedicated volunteers, a new location for baby school was constructed, giving our youngest rehabilitants more access to sunlight and a better section of forest.  This area has larger trees to climb and cool tools for snacks to be given in the heights.  Despite the new location, Tribun and Gembar are quickly outgrowing baby school and will soon need to learn the ropes in forest school.

The youngsters love this feeding platform

The team continues to take behavior observation data on some individuals as an assessment tool to determine when they could be considered for release back into the wild.  The orangutans must be followed and watched closely for several hours, and sometimes its hard to keep up with them as they swing through the trees!  

We are also outlining schedules to move more animals from our transit center to their new Sungai Awan home in the next couple of weeks.

 Don't forget to swing over to our Facebook page for more fab photos of the orangutans enjoying themselves in the forest!