"EAT - PLAY - LEARN"

Helping Orangutans Return to the Wild Through Holistic Environmental Enrichment

Few things are as satisfying as successfully releasing a wild-born, ex-captive, orphan orangutan back to the wild. Before that can happen, young orphans must be carefully raised, nurtured and taught. Caring for more than 340 orangutans in our Care Center & Quarantine (OCCQ) is an expensive, 24/7 effort, requiring vast quantities of food, medical supplies, equipment and trained personnel. It costs more than $2,600 USD to care for one orangutan for one year. Because of the intense orangutan mother-infant bond, orphaned babies need our surrogate maternal help until they reach at least eight years of age.

Most orphans come to our Care Center emotionally, physically, and mentally wounded, frequently suffering from injuries, malnutrition, and lack of care. Many require long-term medical treatment. All need to be fed and cared for, taught how to forage for fruit, and encouraged to build treetop night nests for sleeping.  And they all need daily enrichment activity and enrichment materials. These materials are produced and delivered by trained, skilled staff to ensure orangutan social, cognitive, physical and sensory well-being, and enhance successful return to the wild. 

A fragrant adventure. Smelling the flowers and stimulating the senses in OFI's Enrichment Forest.

For our rehabilitant orangutans trips to the forest are a critical part of their enrichment program; forest excursions occur almost daily for the able-bodied orangutan residents of the Care Center and the nine outlying field facilities.  For most of the day they are free to explore, forage, and play while completing the most critical aspect of their rehabilitation process--learning how to survive in the wild. They climb through the understory, sampling different wild foods and building small day nests under the watchful eye of caregivers who monitor and record their behavior and interactions, and measure each orangutan's progress towards independence and eventual release.

While OFI's primary form of enrichment is to take orangutans to the enrichment forest and to the large jungle-gym facilities, all orangutans need to spend some time within their sleeping enclosures due to the nature of the situation. For example, sexually mature males and females cannot go to the forest at the same time because the females might become pregnant before they return to the wild. Some large adult males cannot go for safety reasons; sick or injured orangutans must be confined until they are healthy; and no orangutans can stay out in the forest over night as the enrichment forest is surrounded by an expanding urban population.

OFI Enrichment Volunteer helps staff build new enclosures and climbing ladder.

It is extremely important, therefore, that OFI provide a mentally challenging environment for orangutans, as they progress through their long rehabilitation program, during times they spend within their enclosures. In addition, there are a few orangutan residents at the OCCQ who suffer from physical disabilities; these individuals require extra enrichment within their sleeping enclosures.

Providing appropriate enrichment within enclosures, and ensuring the quality of those enclosures (size and design), are

'Enriched food' (fruit) wrapped in natural parcel made from forest vegetation.

critical in preventing fear, boredom, anxiety, depression, and abnormal behaviors, and for safeguarding the physical well-being of the OCCQ's orangutan residents. Treat-filled balls of rattan fibers, stimulating toys, food-finding/foraging games, creative use of natural materials from the forest, hanging, swinging and climbing apparatus, a wide variety of foods that offer new tastes, smells and textures, and many other enrichment materials and activities provide essential stimulation and learning. Moreover, well-designed enclosures provide convenient and safe access for the delivery and use of those enrichment items as well as sufficient space to help orangutans flourish while in temporary captivity.

A new, double-enclosure for sub-adult males at the Quarantine, one of 11 new enclosures recently built at the Care Center.

To accommodate our growing population of orangutans, we built 11 new, spacious and airy orangutan enclosures over the past year, and are building more today.  These enclosures are high off the ground with a concrete base to allow staff to clean underneath safely and thoroughly. This height enables orangutans to be a considerable distance above the ground as they would be in the wild. Swings, hammocks, barrels, tires, vine ropes and other enrichment items have been added.

A new water tower, new forest feeding platform, and 1.5 miles of boardwalk were also erected at Camp Rendell, OFI's new 'soft release' facility.  At the Care Center, we added a large, new jungle gym for our smallest infants. It includes ropes, hammocks, swings, tires, beams, and ladders, as well as a

Barrels of new fun!  Sturdy swings, platforms, and ladders, too, were added to orangutans' enclosures to keep them healthy and strong

The process of rescuing, rehabilitating, and repatriating orangutans requires a broad spectrum of specialized care and a comprehensive program of environmental enrichment activity capable of meeting the changing needs of orangutans over time: from helpless infant, to dependent juvenile, and to independent adult. It also includes orangutans with special needs regardless of age.

We call it "Eat, Play, Learn." It's a simple yet powerful enrichment program that is helping orangutans return to the wild with the skills and vigor they need to survive and thrive.    

Hollis Burbank-Hammarlund   

Director of Development

                                We need your help! 

• Orangutan of the Month: Daring Dominique

• News from the Field: "Cute Faces, Dark Realities (Part One)"
• OFI's Foster Program is Better Than Ever!

• Jungle Corner: 

  Rufous-collared Kingfisher

• Conservation Partners: Special Thanks to our Fundraising Partners in Canada & Philadelphia 

• Upcoming Events:
  In New York and Beverly Hills; Summer EcoTours

____________________  

Follow Dominique's charming antics and fun-loving games. Click on photo to read more

____________________  

 

Upcoming Events

2013

 

 

Please Join 

Dr. Biruté Mary Galdikas, Guest Speaker

Sunday, November 10th