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Gigit

Orangutan, Chinta, October 2008

Chinta climbing on the small island

Orangutan, Chinta, October 2008
Gigit, 1 Nov 2008
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    • Gigit
      Chinta climbing on the small island
    • Dan
      Oh God, that is one wonderful photo!!!!!!!!!!!

      Just before I sat down by my computer I was watching a documentary on tv about a fantastic Danish woman running a rescue centre for orangutangs in Indonesia. (You know the story... hundreds af babies rescued from horrible conditions - scared babies who watched their mother be killed, only to experience being chained by the neck as a "pet" in some awful village filled with people from a culture that treats animals as... oh....).

      Anyway, among the many touching points I got from this documentary was the immediate want/need to CLIMB that the little orphaned orangutangs felt as soon as they got out of their small quarantine cages - the joy that they felt when they could go UP THERE among the branches and the leaves!

      Makes you wonder about all these stupidly designed exhibits for the big apes that we constantly discuss on this forum.....

      My point being, of course, that this seems to be an unusually intelligent exhibit design! So glad to see it!
    • TNT
    • Rajang21
      @ThomasNotTom I know! Orangs are so destructive. I need to see if I can find my photos from my first visit in 2009.
    • Gigit
      @Rajang21 @ThomasNotTom As the photographer, even I find it difficult to recognise this! Obese females Senja and Bulu and their offspring Nakal, Chinta and newborn Gambira took up residence here in 1997 and didn't do a lot of damage as they rarely climbed. Nakal used to strip bark from the trees on the small island which became 'his' until he left in 2005: Bornean Orangutan, February 2003 - ZooChat

      There are other archive photos of the islands from 1997,1999, 2002, 2003 and 2006 on pages 77, 78 and 79 of the gallery.

      It was after Mali and Demo's arrival in 2007 that the destruction of the trees began in earnest as they were very keen climbers. Poles were installed on the small island in March 2014:
      Orangutan Islands update, 2 March 2014 - ZooChat
      None of them exist now.

      Things weren't helped by some drastic pruning/clearing in February 2015:
      Orangutan Islands update, 2 March 2014 - ZooChat
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  • Category:
    Paignton Zoo
    Uploaded By:
    Gigit
    Date:
    1 Nov 2008
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    Comment Count:
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