Amazing apes

I spent the day at Sepilok Orangutan rehabilitation centre. It’s different to the reserve at Semenggoh because they have a rehab programme for young, orphaned orangutans whereas all those living at Semenggoh now are either semi-wild or wild. Some of the Sepilok organutans are semi wild and just come out of the forest to get fruit at the two feeding times. Rehabilitation takes a long time. Visitors don’t get to see the very young ones but there’s an area for older youngsters where you can watch them playing on ropes and platforms as they practice skills they need to live in the wild. They also have a forest area for them to go exploring in.

In the morning I split my time between the nursery area and watching the feeding platform. Most other visitors left the feeding platform by 10.30am and there were only a few of us watching the last few orangutans. When they all disappeared into the jungle I went back to the nursery in time to see the last youngster swinging off into the forest. There was a macaque on the same rope and it looked like the orangutan was trying to shake the macaque off the rope. A little while later, a troop of macaques came and finished off the fruit the orangutans had left.


I went back again after lunch. It had rained very heavily but stopped about 2pm. I went to the nursery area and all the young orangutans looked very bedraggled. The sun came out and they dried out – except the one who went and rolled in a muddy puddle – so like a human toddler! It was so lovely to watch them playing. These ones are still learning how to be an orangutan and the staff still have quite a lot of contact with them although that will decrease as they get older and spend more time in the forest.