THE INDEPENDENT DELILAH

Delilah was born on 29 June 2018, to her mother Dilla, who was unable to care for her newborn. With a heavy heart, our Animal Welfare team had to take over responsibility for Delilah’s care and she was raised by our dedicated surrogate mothers at the Nyaru Menteng Rehabilitation Centre. Despite being raised by humans, Delilah has grown into a very smart individual: Just like her mother, she is quite active and loves to explore.

Delilah recently joined Group 3, the larger Forest School group, after showing excellent progress. However, on the commute to and from school, she will stop to play in the playground, cleverly delaying her arrival at school or her return to the complex. Our surrogate mothers spend a lot of extra energy persuading Delilah to follow the group. In the playground, Delilah's favourite pieces of equipment are the swings and plastic drums. She also likes to eat the fruit given to her by the surrogate mothers at the feeding platform.

Delilah has a best friend in Greta, another young female orangutan. The two have been close since they were in Forest School’s small group and have spent time playing together ever since. Delilah still needs a lot of time to learn how to make her own nests, however, she loves being active and spends a lot of time in the trees during her time in Forest School.

As an active, juvenile orangutan, Delilah also likes to make mischief. Sometimes, instead of eating the fruit provided by the surrogate mothers, she will fling it around until she is given a fruit that she finds more appealing. As a result, we often see a lot of scattered food on the forest floor below her. Sometimes, our surrogate mothers are caught off guard when Delilah sneaks up to steal food from their baskets. Bananas and watermelon are her favourites, and she savours every piece she can get her hands on.

We hope this beautiful, young female continues to make sound progress, so she can graduate from Forest School and continue her rehabilitation on to the pre-release islands.