Meet the orangutans!

While infant Nangka has been the recent star of our orangutan area, we don’t want you to forget about our other amazing orangutans. The Orangutan Care Team takes care of 10 orangutans! We are lucky to have a wide range of ages and personalities, and we even get the opportunity to take care of both Bornean and Sumatran orangutan species. Read below for some fun facts about each of our unique individuals.

One of the most important aspects of our jobs as animal care professionals is providing items to enrich the orangutans’ days and therefore enhance their overall wellbeing. Orangutans are known for their intelligence and ability to create and use tools. Given their curiosity and problem-solving skills, we are always striving and looking for new ways to create more complex, arboreal, and cognitive challenges.

Starting off with our oldest individual, we have Benny! Benny is the oldest male Sumatran male orangutan in managed care. At the age of 45, he enjoys spending his days sleeping in the sun and makes nests using blankets and tulle material. He also enjoys making noise and will tap objects and even makes whistles out of blades of grass.

Next up we have Benny’s son Pongo. He was named after the scientific genus name of orangutans. Pongo will turn 12 years old in January. He is in his “teenage” years. However, if you have been following Zoo Atlanta since he was born, you will remember that Pongo was hand-raised for about three months while his mom, Blaze, recovered from a C-section and then eventually started raising him on her own. These days Pongo spends his time playing with Blaze. He has a lot of energy and he is constantly searching for ways to expend it. Recently keepers have added a “zipline” and a firehose cargo net to his habitat to increase the ways he has to swing around and play.

While Blaze may have needed assistance raising Pongo for the first few months, she has always been a great mom to Pongo. Blaze is now 28 years old, and she continues to teach him the skills he needs, such as how to make tools from different types of browse materials. Blaze seems to enjoy running water and has perfected her ability to innovate ways to plug her water source so that it will constantly run. Often times she will be seen resting underneath her waterfall with paper over her head.

Next up we have the youngest orangutan born at Zoo Atlanta. Pelari, affectionately known as Little P, turned 11 years old in September. He is likely one of the most memorable orangutans guests will see. He spends his time in the front of Habitat One observing the guests. He likes to show them his favorite ways to swing around the climbers and play with the ropes.

Now I know we, just like parents, aren’t supposed to pick a favorite … but Satu is mine, and he just celebrated a birthday that means more to people than to orangutans. He is now 21 years old! Satu is the largest male orangutan we take care of. While at a quick glance it might not seem like it, Satu weighs about 250 pounds. He likes to find new and creative ways to play with the toys and firehose in his habitats. He has often invented new ways to spin and swing on various firehose items.

Up next is the mom of Pelari and Satu. Miri is our 32-year-old Bornean female. While Miri is not always front and center on habitat like Pelari, she really seems to enjoy her outside habitat. When she is active on habitat you can see her foraging and working on the enrichment boxes. The enrichment boxes allow for more complex and engaging enrichment to be given on habitats that would otherwise not be able to be given. These include puzzle feeders like stacked bowls, metal cups, and even Kong toys with food inside.

After talking about our amazing moms Blaze and Miri, we need to introduce the absolute rockstar of all orangutan moms, Madu. Madu has been an adoptive mom for FIVE orangutan infants. Madu is a 41-year-old Sumatran  female who has spent the majority of her life raising infants in need. While Madu has raised five infants, she has never had any biological offspring. She is a natural mother, and she does a wonderful job teaching her adopted kids things like nest building, tool use, and how to forage. Some of Madu’s favorite enrichment activities include things such as watching TV or movies (Elmo and live action dogs appear to be her preference) and computer research programs where she gets food reinforcement for figuring out the pattern.

Keju is Madu’s fourth adoptive child. She is 9 years old, and she came to Zoo Atlanta in 2015 from Henry Vilas Zoo. Her mom didn’t raise her, and so the decision was made to bring her to Zoo Atlanta to be raised by Madu. This made Keju very unique in that she is a Bornean orangutan being raised by a Sumatran. While Bornean and Sumatran orangutans are different species, they are still very similar in the most important ways, and it is extremely valuable to animals to be raised in the correct animal culture to allow them to thrive and learn skills unique to them in a way that a human caretaker cannot replicate. Keju likes to use sticks to create a tool that she can use to push things with. She uses her sticks on a special forage table device we use that drops food through a PVC tube from outside the orangutan building to inside the building.

Rembulan Wajah, or as we call him, Remy, just turned 14! He is the third of Madu’s foster kids, and he came to Zoo Atlanta in 2011 from Fort Worth Zoo. His mom was unable to raise him, so Madu took him in and has done an amazing job. Remy enjoys making himself seats out of various plastic toys and buckets and observing the other male orangutans both inside the building and in the habitats. In the habitat, you will either find him in the bushes on the hill or in one of the many hammocks.

Last but not least is our youngest and the one I’m sure everyone has been waiting to hear about. Madu’s fifth adoptive infant, Nangka, has now been at Zoo Atlanta for over a year. We enjoy watching him grow, start exploring more on his own, and discover what life as an orangutan is like. He has started to develop his own personality. He also recently has been venturing further and further from Madu, putting his newfound brachiating skills to the test on various different ropes, firehoses, and swings. While he tests out his new limits, he still shows that he still has his favorite enrichment that he always has had. These favorites include any form of paper or carwash material that he can run/climb/display/hide with.

I hope you have enjoyed getting to know our orangutans a little bit better. I hope our readers are able to come to the Zoo and see for yourselves the orangutan personalities and methods for problem solving (orangutans are usually in their outdoor habitats if temperatures are 50 degrees or higher).

If you would like to provide more of their favorite enrichment items you read about, please consider donating or purchasing items off the  Zoo’s Animal Wish List, found here: https://give.zooatlanta.org/zoo-atlanta-wishlist.

Emily V.
Orangutan Care Team