Huta finds three's company in Ketapang

Volunteer Paloma updates us on Huta's new living arrangements at International Animal Rescue's emergency centre in Ketapang, West Kalimantan.

Huta, the orangutan who was rescued in March, has been placed in a cage with Mona and Nicky, two orangutans of similar age. They all seem to be getting on well, particularly Huta and Mona, who will often play together, chasing each other, laughing and hugging. Thankfully their play isn't as rough as Jojo and Jingo's!

Nicky and Huta also get on, although Nicky has assumed a more dominant role, and often takes Huta's food. To make sure Huta gets her fair share, we try to feed them separately and make sure each gets enough. If things between them get too serious, Mona always steps in, playing the big sister role.

A similar thing has happened with enrichment, with Nicky, and sometimes Mona, trying to take Huta's share of the enrichment we give them all. Again, IAR keepers always put extra enrichment in the cage, to make sure Huta isn't left out.

Despite these small problems, all three orangutans seem to love being together, and Huta is clearly much happier having some sisterly company!

Some of our primates start the journey back to freedom

Nicky, our centre manager in Ciapus, updates us on the latest release of macaques and slow lorises.

The team set off for Lampung, Sumatra yesterday with a group of 12 macaques and four slow lorises. The 12 pig-tailed macaques were supposed to have been released last year but the paperwork has taken ages.

The pre-survey team left for Lampung on 6 June to prepare the habituation cages and, when they let us know that they were almost ready, we started our preparations.

On Wednesday 16 June we started catching the animals at 1400 hrs. They were all weighed and microchipped and blood samples were taken from them. Then in the evening the team set off, arriving in Lampung the next morning for the last stretch of the journey by boat and then on foot.

At the release site the macaques will spend several days in the habituation cage getting used to their surroundings before they are released. Then they will be monitored for about three weeks to make sure they are getting on ok.

News has already come in that they all arrived safely and are already settling in to their new surroundings. So far, so good...!

Helen is much happier and healthier in her new home

Volunteer Paloma updates us on Helen the rescued orangutan's progress at International Animal Rescue's emergency centre in Ketapang, West Kalimantan.

With the arrival of the new units in February at the International Animal Rescue emergency centre, Helen, Jera and Yola were moved from their small enclosures to the bigger ones. Despite still being confined, the extra space and environmental enrichment has seen Helen much more active, and she has begun to build nests with the leaves we give to the orangutans twice a day, just as she would in the wild. She definitely loves the leaves!

In the beginning, Helen started to make her nest just in a corner, then she changed and started to make it in her big hammock, and right now she normally likes to make it in the deep corner of the cage, where she can have interactions with her neighbouring orangutans. She spends a lot of time interacting through the bars with them, and they normally try to steal from each other or pass things to each other, such as the sacks or the leaves. She also likes to play with the enrichment provided, and it is great to see her swinging, swaying and twirling, either by her hands or feet, and behaving like a young orangutan in the wild!

Although it has not been possible to release her yet, Helen's wellbeing has improved a lot since she moved to the bigger enclosure and she looks so much happier and healthier too.

JoJo makes a meal of his friendship with Jingo!

Volunteer Paloma updates us on how JoJo and Jingo are getting on at International Animal Rescue's emergency centre in Ketapang, West Kalimantan.

Since arriving at the emergency rescue centre in November, JoJo has struck up a firm friendship with Jingo. Since they were always playing with each other through the cage bars, it was decided that they should share an enclosure together.

When we opened the door between the cages, Jingo went straight to JoJo and they started to play together, hugging each other and generally being very boisterous! It was great to see how happy they were to be together and how much fun they were having. However, after about two days, we started to notice that JoJo, who is almost twice the size of Jingo, was starting to steal his food, like a cheeky little kid! So unfortunately, we had to separate them again, as Jingo will start losing weight if he doesn't get enough food. Right now they are in separate cages, but they still play together through the bars and we often open the door between cages after feedings so they can still play and have fun.

Although JoJo is a healthy orangutan, last month he came down with pneumonia. Thankfully he recovered well after being treated by IAR's medical team. We don't know, but we suspect the poor diet JoJo was given after he was taken from the forest and kept as a pet has affected his immune system, making him more susceptible to diseases. We hope the vitamin rich diet JoJo gets at the centre will rectify this!

He has also lost quite a lot of hair recently and IAR medical staff believe this is because of the implementation of a new diet, which has seen him shed the weak hair he has had, hopefully to be replaced by much thicker hair. Even with the thin, weak hair, JoJo is so handsome, we can't wait to see how fantastic he will look with his new thicker coat!

New playground builds up the strength and confidence of our infant orangutans

Volunteer Paloma updates us on the new playground for the rescued infant orangutans at International Animal Rescue's emergency centre in Ketapang, West Kalimantan.

In February, the babies and the infant orangutans at the International Animal Rescue centre were moved to a new, bigger facility just down the road. At this facility we have set up a new infant/baby school, creating a playground area where the orangutans can play in the trees, which have been connected to each other by ropes, ladders, hammocks, tyres and platforms, which the orangutans love climbing on. It has been very heartwarming to see infant orangutans grow in confidence and strength, as they become used to using all four of their limbs and climbing high up in the trees.

Every day, different enrichment is placed in the trees, to encourage them to forage and to stimulate their curiosity. Their food is also placed in the trees and on raised platforms, encouraging them to look for it themselves, off the ground, where they can catch parasites. All these things encourage natural wild behaviour!

Although the play area is not huge, it is a lot bigger than the play area they had before, and all the orangutans are making great progress.

We can't wait to see how much they will improve in the new rehabilitation centre, when all the money is raised and it is finally built!

Baby Monti makes amazing progress

Volunteer Paloma updates us on the progress of Monti, a rescued infant orangutan at International Animal Rescue's emergency centre in Ketapang, West Kalimantan.

Monti, the smallest baby orangutan at the International Animal Rescue centre, has grown a lot since the moment she arrived in November, at the age of just 5 months.
She is making very good progress, her teeth are growing and she can eat some bananas and some easy fruit to chew. Her hair is growing too, getting very long and with an intensive colour.

Right now she is very active and independent, even at her young age. Normally we used to leave her to play in the lowest branches of the tree but quickly she begins to investigate and go further up. Sometimes you cannot see her and the only thing you see are the leaves moving on the top of the tree!

She has very good coordination for her age and there aren't any hard ways for Monti, she always finds a way to go to the place she wants. Sometimes, when I am close to another tree, she finds the way to get where I am, using the connections between the trees we made with the ropes, and if another baby or infant orangutan is in her way she is very brave and tries to bite them or push them away - even Melky the biggest of the infants!

It is as though, just from a couple of months ago until now she is getting a very strong personality, and she is making amazingly good progress for her age undoubtedly!

We will keep telling you about the progress of this brave baby orangutan who is growing healthy and strong in the International Animal Rescue orangutan baby school.

Meet Huta

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

Huta is a female of about 6 or 7 years old, She was rescued in March from a place very close to the IAR centre called the Hutan Kota (City Forest) from which she got her name. This place is an enclosed forest very close to Ketapang and is one of the top tourist attractions in the area. It is easy to access and has the appearance of a large forest. However, it is not a suitable place for a wild orangutan because the trees do not provide enough food. Also, a great many tourists visit it, many of whom gave Huta human food in an effort to get close to her, which was a serious disease risk for her.

Because of this International Animal Rescue felt they had no choice but to rescue Huta and take her to the centre in Ketapang. She had been sighted a few months before but disappeared before we could rescue her. We suspect that she was taken by a local and kept as a pet then later released back into the Hutan Kota after the "owner" realised how difficult and expensive she would be to keep at home. We assume too that she was kept with people before she was taken to the Hutan Kota, possibly since she was just a baby. She is very tame and, having lacked the company of her own kind, displays behaviours similar to those of humans whom she has copied.

Since arriving at the IAR facility in Ketapang Huta has put on weight and is clearly healthier. She is very clever, almost like Mona, and she knows to use tools like sticks to get food or to steal food from her neighbours Jojo and Jingo. She loves to play on her own with the sacks and the enrichments we provide. She also used to play with Helen, who was moved to the new bigger cages close to her, passing things through the cage and really having fun.

We hope that in the not too distant future Huta will be rehabilitated and one day have the opportunity to live a natural life in the wild again.