New Arrival at Nyaru Menteng 21 Orangutans Released and More

On the journey back to Nyaru Menteng  from reintroducing 21 orangutans into natural habitat, Program Manager Anton Nurcahyo received a call from Chanee of the Kalaweit Foundation to inform us that yet another orangutan needed our help.

This time a very young baby of 3-4 months old, named Jonkey by the owner. Since this little one arrived on the 6th November, the day of the US election results, our team have nicknamed this special young orangutan Obama!

Obama was found in Kuala Kurun kept by a worker from one of the surrounding oil palm plantations. We were told that the baby had been kept by the man for 2 months meaning that he was extremely young when taken from his mother. Undoubtedly this young orangutan’s mother had been killed; a female orangutan will fiercely defend herself and protect her infant. Following joint coordination with our government partner BKSDA, Obama arrived in Nyaru Menteng at just after 8 am on 6 November with the Kalaweit Foundation.

Although Obama is very young, he appears to be in good health. Health screening will be conducted over the coming days, but the most important first step is to make sure Obama is settled, under no stress and provided with 24 hour love and care.

He will need much love and attention from our dedicated baby sitters to grow into a confident youngster and prepare for forest school in years to come.  Love, care and forest skills would have, under natural circumstances, been provided by Obama's mother. All we can hope is that we do the best job we can in providing these so that Obama develops into a confident, able male orangutan - one day able to also go back to the forest like our other orangutans.

We share this story here as whilst celebrating our releases, there are still so many orangutans who need our help.  Please help us to help them!