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| Author : sue_and_nathan | Diary name : yearaway | ||
| 10 Jul 2001 : Sepilok, Sabah - Malaysia | |||
| The Wild Man of Borneo | |||
| The orangutan is an endangered animal and can now only be found in two places on the Earth - Borneo and Sumatra. When you see one it's impossible to imagine how anyone could harm one of these amazing creatures, no less than kill them, but they have done and that, plus the forest being replaced by palm oil plantationsk, has led to them becoming a highly endangered animal. When we got to Sepilok Orangutan Rehabilitation Centre we made our way to feeding platform A where the warden feeds whichever orangutans turn up with bananas and milk twice a day. The Centre was set up to look after and nurse injured and orphaned individuals and then to rehabilitate them into the wild. Orphans are taught by their human wardens to swing and climb in the trees and to find their own food, and then they are gradually allowed deeper and deeper into the jungle until they tire of the daily diet and begin foraging for themselves. The programme is deemed a success when they are never seen again. The first orangutan to arrive at the feeding platform was a large male who came from behind us and walked along the wooden platform where we were standing. One of the rangers immediately stepped between him and our camera which he was eyeing with an extremely covetous look! You should've seen the dirty look he gave the warden. Apparentely, he's one of the playboys at the Centre and has been known to pinch the odd camera or two! A number of orangutans made their way to the feeding platform via the walkway we were on. The funniest was when I was busy taking a photo and Nathan called,'Suze!' I turned round to find a very young, very cute ape sitting right by my feet. If I'd stepped back when Nathan called I would have stepped on the poor chaps hand! Surprisingly for me I wasn't scared at all so we just stood and watched her from so close until she decided to move off for her breakfast. The cutest pair were a young male and female called Ollie and Pat. Pat, the larger of the two, had to keep on interrupting his breakfast to help Ollie who was pretty unsteady on the climbing ropes (the ropes are the orangutan equivalent of a wheelchair). The two were both orphans and were paired up as 'buddies' when they first arrived at the Centre to look after one another. They have since become inseparable. Ollie was ready to be released full time into the jungle, but Pat wasn't. But, Ollie wouldn't leave without her and so they let the two of them go together, hence why Pat hasn't yet mastered the art of swinging through the trees! We saw Ollie in the middle of his breakfast chomping away through a rather tasty looking bunch of bananas when he looked up to see Pat at the far end of the rope from the platform. He left his bananas, went over to her, took hold of her hand and pulled her along the rope to share his bananas! It really didn't surprise us later when the warden told us that orangutans share 96.2 percent of our genes. Needless to say, we went back to the Centre twice more and saw loads of these amazing animals. In fact, we were so impressed with the place that we are planning to fly back to Sepilok again next week to see them! | |||