Sometimes the orphaned orangutans that we care for in our soft-release programme need extra encouragement to practice the skills they need for an independent life in the wild. Timtom is one such orangutan. Before we can release her from our care, we need to make sure that she has mastered climbing, foraging, and nest-building. However, Timtom has shown little interest in the latter. Instead, she prefers to find comfortable branches to sleep on when she spends nights sleeping in the rainforest.

Timtom has been with us for 7 years now, having joined our soft-release programme at Camp JL in Lamandau Wildlife Reserve in 2016. She has proven to be quite the character around camp and her playful nature provides a continuous source of amusement for our staff.

Her favourite activity is to play in puddles and mud pits, which involves spending a lot of time on the ground - an unusual trait in an orangutan as an arboreal species. She will often soak herself with water and cover herself in mud, meaning that it is rare to see a photo or video from the field of Timtom clean and dry.

In January of this year, our Reintroduction Manager, Azhari, and the team who have been caring for Timtom at Camp JL decided to move her to Camp Buluh, which is often submerged in water. The team hoped that she might spend more time in the trees than on the ground playing and begin practicing her nest building skills.

Timtom joined Sinta, the youngest orangutan in our soft-release programme, at Camp Buluh and the pair are becoming fast friends. When they are taken out into the rainforest each day, they will spend most of their time playing with each other. Timtom has been climbing more, however, the temptation to play in the pools of water often brings her down to the ground which wasn’t the outcome we were hoping for. Sinta also doesn’t like to miss out on the fun, and one of our vets, Wawan, got some great shots of the pair playing and splashing together. 

Living in Camp Buluh means a lot of travel by canoe, particularly because Timtom and Sinta have stripped the trees of leaves in the camp and so they need to be taken across the river to access the lush forest on the other side. Staff at the camp spent the first few weeks of Timtom’s arrival practicing crossings of the river with her, which was a completely new experience for the young ape. She showed some fear the first few times but is slowly becoming used to travelling on the water.

So far, there has still been no development in Timtom’s nest building skills and sleeping on branches won’t do when she is living independently in the wild. We’ve got more work to do with Timtom to get her ready. Although we’re sure everyone will agree, her cheeky personality will be missed around camp when the time finally comes for her release.