In the wild, our field team have recorded so many orangutan births over the past 18 months that the forest is beginning to look more like a nursery! This is truly uplifting news for a species of great ape that overall is still in decline, and here we take a closer look into the next generation that we’ve observed in the Lamandau Wildlife Reserve:
Pancaran - 16 months old
Wild female Pauline doesn’t explore the forest surrounding Camp Gemini so often so it was such a welcome surprise for our team to see her cradling little Pancaran last June. Even now the pair are rarely observed in the forest so it makes their sightings even more special! Fittingly the name Pancaran means ‘radiance’ and is Pauline’s first experience of motherhood. Pancaran’s birth was also the first of 2020, but little did we know that the orangutan baby-boom in the Lamandau Wildlife Reserve had only just begun!
Quentin - 15 months old
By contrast, Quentin’s mother Queen is a regular at Camp Buluh and already an experienced mother. Quentin though is the 24-year-old’s first son and for much of the past year they have spent their mornings foraging for food near camp together before they head back into the depths of the forest to build a nest for the night. From time to time when there is an abundance of fruiting trees however, Queen and Quentin will search out the trees that are fruiting and make the most of the short season.
Samuel - 15 months old
At Camp Rasak, our team also monitor Samuel and his mother Suwita as they search for fruit in the trees. At his young age, Samuel is totally reliant on his mother and he closely watches her behaviour to understand the map of the forest. Learning where the tastiest fruiting trees are and what times of the year they ripen can’t be learnt overnight, so Samuel has to be a patient pupil until he’s ready to explore the Reserve on his own.
Leon - 15 months old
Within days of spotting newborn Samuel at Camp Rasak, our team couldn’t believe their eyes to see another wild orangutan born in the forest. 13-year-old female Labetty emerged with a tiny infant holding onto her side. It can take a while to identify the sex of an orangutan when it is very small, but following a few days monitoring the pair’s progress, we could see that the infant was male and therefore given the name Leon. Today Leon appears to be very healthy and gaining strength each day, his mother is a very fast climber so he’ll need all the strength he can muster to hold on as they travel through the forest!
Brenda - 12 months old
Brenda is the next infant orangutan approaching her first birthday! Her mother Betli is wild so it’s unclear how old she is exactly, but our team at Camp Buluh think she must be turning around 20 years old this year. Like some of the wild orangutans in the Reserve, Betli and Brenda only seem to venture towards our monitoring camps when trees are having a poor fruiting season. From time to time our staff will provide supplementary fruit to ensure that these great apes continue to stay healthy all year round. One day Brenda will be ready to decide where she searches for food on her own, but it can take up to eight years for these young primates to be fully prepared for independence.
Milo - 11 months old
Reintroduced orangutan Maya was released into this protected habitat 19 years ago. Seemingly content in her new surroundings, the female has gone onto to successfully raise three sons: Mozart, Macho, and most recently, Milo. The arrival of Milo last November paved the way for Macho to become more independent, and although the seven-year-old still follows his mother, he has started to make his own nests. Although largely independent, orangutans are a semi-solitary species so this behaviour is not uncommon in the wild.
Unnamed infant - 11 months old
Our field team have known Passion for 16 years so have become familiar with her behaviour and routine. She was released into the forest as a six-year-old in 2005 and has brought up infants before, but in November last year, Passion and her latest newborn decided to venture deep into the forest before our team could identify the sex of the infant. It’s thought that the pair may have been frightened off by a large male, but since their disappearance they have not yet returned to Camp Gemini. In the past our team have gone years between sightings of some orangutans, so Passion and her newborn may still be spotted in the future. Orangutans can have large forest ranges that they navigate so we’ll continue keep our eyes peeled!
Ilan - 6 months old
Just when we thought the influx of infants would slow down in the forest, in April of this year another female decided that the time was right for her to show off her latest newborn! Ilan was named in memory of a previous member of staff and is Ilik’s second offspring. Tragically her first infant Izzy died within two years but Ilik and Ilan are healthy in the forest around Camp Gemini. Orangutans are exceptionally good mothers and unlike other great apes, this bond is strengthened by the fact there are no other relatives to care for their offspring.
Silva - 4 months old
The latest member of the wild orangutan nursery joined in June 2021. Identified as male and born around World Rainforest Day, our staff at Camp Gemini decided to give Sheila’s new arrival the name Silva- a forestry term. Unlike some orangutan mothers in the wild, Sheila is very open to showing off her son to our monitoring team on her visits to camp. Not only does this help us paint a picture of the relationship between a mother and her infant, but it also enables us to capture some great photographs of the pair too!
You may wonder who has fathered all these infants? We know that there are two or three wild and reintroduced males seen in the vicinity of our forest camps, therefore it’s obvious that one orangutan is capable of fathering a number of offspring and yet have no role in the upbringing of his progeny.
The young primates shown here are fortunate to survive in a habitat that’s protected, but not all orangutans are as lucky. As well as monitoring wild orangutans, we also support those who have been rescued without a mother to care for them. Find out how you can adopt an orphaned orangutan today so that one day they can join these infants in the wild.
