Bandut takes to the treetops

Team vet Jenny Jaffe updates us on Bandut's progress at International Animal Rescue's orangutan centre in Ketapang, West Kalimantan.

Bandut, the newest addition to our group and the star of my last blog entry, is doing well. He is still in quarantine while we await the results of his blood tests (they were sent to an external lab). The stool samples we examined in our clinic just after he arrived were negative for worm eggs. But to be on the safe side we gave him deworming medication anyway and some nice dead worms came out with his stool the next day, so I’m happy our ‘new animal protocol’ does routinely include deworming!

The idea of keeping him separate from the other youngsters for a fixed period is of course to prevent him from transmitting any new diseases to them.

Apart from his health our main concern was that he might find it hard to get ‘jungle skills’ as he had been treated as a human baby for so long. Happily, during the day, when he is out of the enclosure he sleeps in, he loves climbing high up in the trees. And he is managing to find the small ripe fruits up there hanging from the farthest branches. Bandut is monitored constantly while he is exploring, as the ‘emergency centre’ he stays at is not really built for curious little orangutans and without somebody watching him, he could easily escape!

It might have been mentioned before, but this is the set up we have now: the ‘emergency centre’ for the 11 older orangutans who stay in big cages, and the ‘baby school’ playground for the 14 youngsters. This is a temporary set up though, and work is already underway on the new land that has been acquired about 15 kilometres away. It is a wonderful location for true rehabilitation as it is surrounded by and contains quite a lot of forest with the huge trees orangutans love. It is an enormous job to create the quality rehabilitation centre we have envisioned there and it needs a large investment. But the idea of seeing these forest apes swinging happily in the trees all day long is extremely motivating. International Animal Rescue Indonesia has some exciting times coming up...

Hope for Rahayu and introducing Bandut

Team vet Jenny Jaffe updates us on little Rahayu's progress and introduces Bandut, our latest arrival at International Animal Rescue's orangutan centre in Ketapang, West Kalimantan.

Rahayu, the baby orangutan who was rescued recently and had cerebral malaria, is a lot stronger now. Instead of sleeping the whole day, she is now quite active, crawling around and climbing in her little jungle gym reasonably well. She has a ravenous appetite, although we have to be a bit careful about how much and what we feed her, as she gets bloated quite easily. The main issue is that she still cannot see. She arrived this way and it is almost certainly a result of the malaria. Either by damage to the retina directly or because the sight centre in her brain was damaged during the bout of cerebral malaria. Though she obviously cannot see, she does have a pupillary reflex (her pupils get smaller when we shine a bright light in her eyes), so we do have some hope that her sight might improve in the future. Although there have been many cases of malaria in baby orangutans in other rescue centres, very few have had blindness as a symptom, so it is hard to predict what will happen to Rahayu from other cases.

Our most recent rescue is luckily quite a healthy individual. His name is Bandut, and he is one and a half years old. He was rescued on 28 April in a town quite a few hours' drive away from Ketapang by our vet Anita, babysitter Dede and field director Argitoe. They left at 4am to be able to make the trip in a day and not arrive back too late.

Bandut is an extremely handsome little boy and knows very little of the life of a wild orangutan. He was kept by a childless husband and wife who treated him as their baby. He was pretty much fed the diet of a human infant (rice, milk etc.) and slept in bed with the wife. The couple is quite poor, but took care of him as best they could.

The story goes (again, you never know the level of truth it contains) that he was found by the side of the river as a tiny baby, still hairless and with the umbilical cord still attached. No mother in sight...

The couple took him into their home and the husband recently decided the time had come to give him a better life before bandut would become unmanageable.

After a long trip in the back of our pick-up, Bandut arrived at the IAR orangutan centre where he showed a lot of resilience, exploring his new home and eager to try new fruits more suitable to the diet of an orangutan. He is quite keen on contact with humans, so our main challenge will be teaching him the forest skills he has never learnt in his life till now.

The orangutans go nuts for bottles and buckets of sawdust!

Paloma updates us on how our rescued orangutans are enjoying their enrichment programme at International Animal Rescue's orangutan centre in Ketapang, West Kalimantan.

Every day the orangutans enjoy a different part of the monthly environmental enrichment programme. One of these enrichments is made with sawdust which they love to play with and also, if we add some nuts and seeds, they will spend time foraging for them. It is very interesting to see the reactions of the different orangutans to the enrichment, depending on their various personalities.

At the baby school, we put the sawdust in a bucket which is placed between two hammocks. After filling the bucket to the brim with sawdust the curious ones soon come to investigate and examine it. They carefully remove the sawdust in small handfuls, but normally one of them gets very excited and has a wild game with the bucket and the sawdust. The last time Sindi took the lead. She hurried over when she saw the rest cautiously investigating the bucket, and then she was so excited that she jumped straight into it!

Then she climbed out again, landing on the grass but at the same time holding on to the bucket and trying to knock it over, which she eventually succeeded in doing. Then Sindi started to cover her head and her face with the sawdust and was clearly having the time of her life!

Karmilla, who is normally very shy with the enrichment and doesn’t engage very often, was there too and her fur was full of the sawdust because of Sindi's game. The other orangutans were completely surprised by Sindi's reaction: they just watched her and occasionally tried to join in but she was so focused on the sawdust that she hardly noticed the other orangutans.

The older orangutans at the emergency rescue centre have also enjoyed this enrichment, but in a different way. We usually put the sawdust inside a 19l bottle, adding also some rolled up newspaper and some peanuts and then we put the bottle inside the enclosure.

I have seen different reactions to this enrichment: for example, the first thing Monte does is get the newspaper out of the bottle. But when he gets it out he doesn’t do anything with it. He tips the bottle up and watches the sawdust falling, then he tries to catch the peanuts that are falling with the sawdust.

However, his enclosure mate Patrick has found a better way to get the peanuts: he gets the newspaper that Monte takes out from the bottle and spreads it out on the floor of the enclosure, then he gets the bottle and lets the sawdust fall on the newspaper, so the peanuts can’t fall through the bars onto the ground below.

I have also seen this technique used by the group of Jojo, Jingo and John, but in this group, Jojo is the one who manipulates the bottle, letting the sawdust fall onto the newspaper, while Jingo and John are watching and waiting for the moment when the peanuts appear and then they quickly snatch them!

After finding all the peanuts they all remove every bit of sawdust from their fur and also spend a lot of time just playing with the empty bottle.

This kind of enrichment is excellent as occupational entertainment because it encourages the orangutans to forage and explore new textures. It also stimulates them to think of the best ways to get the peanuts that are hidden in the sawdust. And clearly they all have a lot of fun too!

The infants are given plenty of playthings to keep them out of trouble!

Paloma updates us on how Monte is getting on at International Animal Rescue's orangutan centre in Ketapang, West Kalimantan.

A new play area has been built in the baby school at the orangutan rescue centre. The infants and babies were becoming very difficult to control because there are so many of them and the area is really too small for such a naughty group! For this reason it was decided to build another roof and add more structures and enrichments to focus our infants’ attention and give them something new to play with and enjoy together.

From my observations last year and at the moment as well, I can see that they really like the vertical and horizontal ropes and they love the tubes. They go inside them and rest there or just play going in, on or through. So we have equipped the area with various physical enrichments, some different from the tube function, some similar, adding also ropes, ladders and hammocks.

One example is the tube made out of a big barrel. I just cut the bottom off the barrel and put the rope through it, then hung it high up from one side of the play area to the other. I made some holes as windows so that when the orangutans are inside the barrel they can observe what is going on outside. We have hung two of them up in the play area and they really love them.

Another thing they used to like last year were the hammocks with roofs made from tyres and sacks. Before I tried this just with two tyres but now I have tried it with three, and it is much better! I like to use the tyres because they are made of very strong material and so are very durable and we also get them for free. So I have tried other ways to make the tubes a bit different. Using a net and the tyres, it is possible to make tubes that are vertical and horizontal, and they seem to enjoy using them a lot.

With the horizontal tube, the net gets smaller in the centre of the tube as it is very tight. Then, when they go inside they use it to lie down and it makes them slide from one side to another. With the vertical tube the orangutans like to climb it from the inside, at the same time playing at putting the net on their faces. I also add a rope inside with many bamboo pieces so they can play with it, moving the bamboo and getting pleasure just with the noise the bamboo makes. The tyres have also been used to make a simple wall of tyres: it is very easy to do and they really love going through, up and over it.

Although there are already many structures and the orangutans play a lot in the new area, it is important to evaluate now how much they use each new enrichment and how durable it is. Then we can fix the ones that haven’t been successful and look for ways to improve them and make them work. I love this task and the most rewarding thing about it is seeing how much the orangutans all enjoy it!

Monte proves a quick learner and enjoys the enrichment

Paloma updates us on how Monte is getting on at International Animal Rescue's orangutan centre in Ketapang, West Kalimantan.

Monte, who is the oldest of all the orangutans in the emergency rescue centre, has been already tested for possible diseases and given general checks. Fortunately the results have been negative for hepatitis and tuberculosis and the blood test levels seem to be alright. Therefore it hasn't been necessary to put him on any treatment at the moment.

However, the vet Doctor Anita thinks that maybe Monte has some problem with his coordination or eyesight. It seems that he can't coordinate some actions properly, such as, when we give him a banana, sometimes he can't take it on his first attempt and this is probably due to some deficiency in his sight. Also, she thinks that he may have a lack of calcium in his bones because of his locomotion. For this reason he is taking multivitamins for his bones.

Despite this, Monte has learnt very quickly in his training for a blood test. We are still on the first steps with him but it is likely he will learn very fast: after just two sessions he is able to give us his arm and stay relaxed. It gives us very good expectations for his learning, and shows how intelligent Monte is.

With regard to the enrichments I have been trying, Monte loves the enrichments with leaves, just like the rest of the orangutans. I just spread some honey on leaves and make little sacks with some fruit inside placed between the branches. He likes to suck each leaf and then afterwards play with the rest. He also likes the big cardboard boxes with some banana spread and some powder: so funny to see how, after licking off all the banana very carefully, he uses the box to put on his head and try to clean himself from the powder!

Paloma returns to Ketapang to find bigger, hairier, happier orangutans!

Paloma has returned to Ketapang after some time away in Australia and gives us her first impressions on how the orangutans are progressing.

It has been already seven months since I left Ketapang last June. For sure during this time I have been missing this place and the orangutans and luckily I have been able to come again for another six months.

My first impression about the orangutans after all this time has been so good. It is so nice to see right now all the babies playing together in the playground area, they are so many, and it is so amazing how the babies I knew have grown. I couldn't believe that the hairy orange ball who was climbing everything so confidently was Monti! She is so big and independent that it is a real pleasure just to observe her for hours.

Melky is already a big boy and the boss of all the babies. His weight is 18.5kg, and he is really powerful. The baby keepers do a very good job because I can imagine how difficult it must be to cope with him. I remember he used to be very cheeky when I was looking after him in the baby school, but right now he is two times bigger, therefore it has to be really hard work. Luckily the enrichments keep him busy, yet sometimes he looks for strange activities too, such as making a hole in the ground by himself and playing with the wet sand that can be found about 30 cm under the surface. He even enjoys putting his head into the hole and staying there with his head down. Perhaps he’s trying to cool his head down. So interesting to see him playing!

Also I have noted that Sindi is probably the most independent of all the babies and the biggest after Melky. She likes to be around in the trees at the highest points and watch what is going on outside the baby school. Probably she loves the wind in these places because the other day she was just sitting on the roof of the playground area and suddenly she just stood up and opened her mouth, closing her eyes as though she was just enjoying feeling the wind.

I have met also the nine new baby orangutans - Karmilla, Ongky, Jack, Puyol, Ujang, Ledi, Cemong and the youngest Paolo and Pedro. This first week in the centre I have been training myself to recognise each one. This is hard work for the first few days but after a while it becomes so evident which one is which!

In the adult enclosures my big surprise was to see Mona with very healthy and long hair. JoJo also has grown very good looking because when I left he had very little hair and now his arms, body and head are covered and his beard grows again. I can see also that the capabilities of many of them have improved a lot. Before I would only see Mona using the branches from the vegetation as a tool to get food from the nearby cages and from the outside, but these days I have also seen Huta, Jingo and JoJo using this skill: probably they have learnt it from Mona.

I also met the new adult: Monte, the oldest of all of them; Mely now with the female group - Mona, Nicky and Huta; Peni who is very aggressive towards humans and, knowing her history, I completely understand why; John who is now with the male group - JoJo and Jingo, and Patrick, the smallest in the transit, always looking for a bit of a game between the cages with the male group or with Monte.

Moreover the centre is getting bigger and also the team has grown a lot, with new keepers and baby keepers. For this reason I will focus my work on the enrichments to try to make all the orangutans’ lives busy and fun while they are still in the emergency centre. Luckily I could meet Carolynn and she showed me the work she was doing during her stay and we practiced the training behaviour to get blood tests from JoJo and Mely. I think it is a very important issue and very interesting work, thus I will be very happy to continue with it under the supervision of vet Anita.

And of course I will keep sending through news and updates frequently!

Shoulders to the wheel!

Little Paolo enjoys his playground freedom

Our volunteer Carolynn sends us the latest news from our orangutan rescue centre in Ketapang.

During the last couple of weeks baby Paolo has been impressing us all in Ketapang by showing off his independence and climbing skills. He is still only about 10 months old, but he can entertain himself for hours climbing the trees at baby school. He used to spend all his time in the nursery with his buddy Pedro, but now Paolo spends at least a few hours every day socializing in the playground. Pedro comes down to baby school to play as well, but he is still quite attached to his babysitters, and isn’t ready yet to play for long lengths of time by himself.

The other baby school orangutans had already met Paolo during shorter visits, so it hasn’t been too shocking to have him around more often. Orangutan Ledi recently entered baby school as well, and has enjoyed having a new rookie to play with.

I think Paolo really enjoys the freedom that comes with baby school, including not having to wear a diaper. He immediately starts dancing and thrashing his legs with glee as soon as it has been removed. Be careful where you stand though, since an orangutan without a diaper could be climbing above you!