At the BOS Foundation’s Nyaru Menteng Orangutan Rehabilitation Centre lives a mischievous orangutan who shares a name with one particularly famous politician from across the globe...
“Obama!”
I turned surprised at the yell of a surrogate mother and watched as a small orangutan sprinted away from the other forest school students on the playground and the surrogate mother followed in quick pursuit.
The ruckus was quickly resolved as the surrogate mother caught up with the orangutan, took his hand, and led him back to the group. When she walked by me, she smiled and explained in Indonesian, “Obama can be so naughty.”
I couldn’t help but to let out a laugh.
The walk to the office at the Nyaru Menteng Orangutan Rehabilitation Centre in Central Kalimantan can frequently be exciting; it is not uncommon to witness macaques stealing clothes from the drying line, vets hauling sedated orangutans to the clinic for examination, or forest school students trying to sneak away from the group and explore a new area.
However, as an American, I never expected that I would meet Obama while walking to the office in Borneo! I needed to know more about this apparently ‘naughty’ Obama.
Right now, there is a 9-year-old male orangutan named Obama who resides at Nyaru Menteng. His name matching that of the former President of the United States of America is no coincidence. When he was about 5-months-old he was rescued from the Gunung Mas Regency in Central Kalimantan. The date of his rescue was November 6, 2012 – the same date of the U.S. election which resulted in then-President Barack Obama’s second term in office.
While Human Obama was not the first U.S. President to visit Indonesia (that would be Richard Nixon back in 1969), he still quite famous here as he is the only U.S. President to ever live in Indonesia!
When he was just six years old, Human Obama moved to Jakarta, Indonesia, where he resided with his mother for four of his formative years. When he visited again, decades later after becoming the President of the U.S., he still fondly recalled his love for ‘bakso’ (Indonesian meatball soup) and ‘sate’ (Indonesian grilled, skewered meats) from street vendors. His childhood in Jakarta and respect for Indonesian culture, made Human Obama popular amongst many in Indonesia.
So, when a small orangutan was rescued on the same day that Human Obama was reelected, the BOSF team dubbed him Orangutan Obama right away.
By early 2013, Orangutan Obama had joined the Nursery Group, before joining Forest School, and ultimately ‘graduating’ in 2019. Over the years, Orangutan Obama proved he was not as well-behaved as Human Obama, as he would occasionally bite at surrogate mothers and classmates, but he did prove he was ready for the forest. He could climb trees, build nests, and find food with the best of them. When was last time Human Obama peeled rattan with his teeth?
Now, Orangutan Obama is taking on the final test in his rehabilitation journey as he will soon be moved to a pre-release island in the Salat Island Cluster, where he will need to prove to our technicians that he has what it takes to live independently as a wild orangutan!
We hope Orangutan Obama passes this test with flying colors and in a few years’ time he can live freely in a safe Indonesian rainforest, contributing to a new wild orangutan population and making Human Obama proud of his orangutan namesake!
The BOS Foundation, together with the KLHK and the BKSDA of Central Kalimantan will soon conduct the 44th orangutan release from the Nyaru Menteng Rehabilitation Centre to the Bukit Baka Bukit Raya National Park (TNBBBR).
Every year on April 22, we celebrate Earth Day to honour the planet that is home to us all.
It was a usual day at the Nyaru Menteng forest school, where young orangutans were learning from one another while their human surrogate mothers looked on from below.
