Sepilok Orang Utan Rehabilitation Centre
Two weeks ago I went diving for several days in a place called Lankayan. That trip, including pics, are now on the scuba blog.
On the way back from the island, we were taken to a place just outside Sandakan, Sabah called Sepilok Orang Utan Rehabilitation Centre. Orang utan or in English orangutan is one of the few loan words from Malay into English. Orang utan literal means "man of the forest".
Every year, many orang utans are taken as babies from the wild and kept for pets. This is an illegal practice in most countries. They never learn the basic things they should such as how to find food in the wild or how to swing along a rope. Often, once the orang utan starts to grow up, the owners grow tired of it and don't know what to do with this pet. Or, they get caught possessing an illegal animal and are heavily fined or jailed. The role of the rehabilitation centre is to help these primates return to the wild. This is a long and slow process. Often, young orang utans arriving at the centre are much more comfortable living in a cage. (Yes, this story can be used as a powerful illustration in a variety of ways.) Slowly, they are led back into the jungle. Some return to the cages for months before learning to build nests in trees.
They are coaxing into the jungle by the use of feeding platforms. The first platform is not far away from the cage and eventually they are lured deeper into the jungle. Some will never stop returning to the feeding platforms, while other individuals, after a few years, stop showing up at feeding times and choose instead to disappear into the vastness of the Borneo jungle.
The pictures are not of wild orang utans. They are semi-wild, living in the jungle but still psychologically dependent upon humans. Then centre is about 40 years old and has rehabilitated scores of orang utans. Every year about 40,000 visitors stop in for a look at these interesting creatures.
For those of you wanting further information, see Appeal UK or this site.
If I tried to eat like this, a trip to the emergency room would follow.
A close up shot.
This one seemed to have something wrong with his/her eye. Sometimes they are abused while kept as pets.
The tattoo on the inner thigh is done by the centre as an identification mark. Plus, wild orang utan chicks find tattoos uber-sexy.
The feeding platform. You can see pig-tailed macaques vying for food as well, which was bananas and sugar cane. I asked if orang utans and macaques would mix in the wild and was told yes but I find that hard to believe. I think the food is the only reason they are mixing.
Just hanging out at a friend's house, mom!
This pig-tailed macaque had big plans for the day. A nap followed by a snooze and then some more eating.
This one is intently contemplating a banana peel. Maybe it had a golden ticket in it.
