February 2019

Grows up!

Baby Liesje grows very well and very healthily, due to the care and love of her mother, Tanjung. As she already has 4 teeth, nowadays she could to eat some fruit given by the caretakers, such as banana and papaya but the milk from her mother is still the most important for her. She also begins to play by herself but still not too far from her mother.

As Liesje grows so well, we hope she will soon get the chance to join her mother and go to forest school for the first time. With this opportunity, her mother, Tanjung, can introduce and teach her how to live in the forest. As Tanjung is one of the potential orangutans to be released, it is a great chance for both of them to be released in 2019 or 2020. We hope so! ®text and pictures provided by Masarang.hk and Sintang Orangutan Center

Yummy fruits

It has been around 5 months since Tanjung gave birth of her little girl, Liesje. Tanjung cares and raises her baby girl. Previously, Liesje was always on her mother back but recently she started to play by herself nearby her mother, Tanjung who always keeps an eye on her. When the caretakers gave Tanjung fruits, Liesje started to taste kinds of fruit by licking it and Tanjung let her little baby girl to taste food. Soon, Liesje will join Tanjung to go to forest school.

Liesje is the name we have given to Tanjung’s baby.  She is named after Liesbeth van der Burgt who spent time with us in Sintang as a volunteer. Liesbeth was known to her friends as Liez and the Liez centre at Jerora is named after her. With the nearing completion of the Jerora orangutan forest school that is partly built with funds from the inheritance of Liesbeth who passed away we felt it perfect timing to name this new-born little girl Liesje. The “je”-part of the name is normally added as a loving adjective in Dutch for young children. Hence we have named her Liesje. Liesje, like Liesbeth was, is special. She is the baby of Tanjung and Mamat. And Mamat is an orangutan that came totally paralyzed to our centre and the Ministry of Forestry had given up on him but he survived that first night and through years of loving care he regained most of his strength and ability to move. And move he obviously did! Now after more than 5 years of care he became a father! And although Mamat is unlikely to live completely wild after a release, his baby Liesje has a very good chance to be living back in the Bornean jungle. Liesje is very healthy and Tanjung is a great mother. Right after the birth Tanjung did not want to eat fruits for some reason, only fibrous food like rattan shoots. Liesje always clings to her mother’s long hair. She takes water from the drinking nozzle and lovingly washes Liesje clean. And when Liesje sometimes cries she will tenderly pet her on her small back. And if it is raining and Liesje is in her favorite location on Tanjung’s head, Tanjung will cover her up with a big leaf!

Tanjung does not like human females for some reason. But most of our male caretakers can approach her up close to inspect how little Liesje is doing. Doctor Jati though seems to be extra special. When he walked up to Tanjung and asked her where Liesje was, Tanjung took Liesje from behind and showed her to doctor Jati! Then he asked her “Can I check your baby Tanjung?” and unbelievably Tanjung then let him touch Liesje and Jati felt so confident with Tanjung that he was able to lift her up and hold her to check whether she was healthy, wellfed and not dehydrated and also to check on the drying umbilical cord. After confirming Liesje was in perfect condition he then carefully put Liesje back in the arms of completely relaxed Tanjung. Lovely! I feel also very privileged to be in the inner circle of Tanjung. We will make sure to send lots of updates on how our photogenic little Liesje is doing in the coming years. 

We at the Sintang Orangutan Centre are very grateful for your support. We hope that Liesje can motivate many more people to help us so we can help many more orangutans in need of rescueing. Just in the last five weeks we took on the responsibility for four more orangutans! Each and every one of them is special and precious and we will do our utmost best to give them a new chance in life. The SOC team.

The Sintang Orangutan Centre is in great need of support and donations.

Please donate what you can to help the great work being done by the SOC Team.

6 orangutans released to the wild in the last 6 months.

37 still being taken care of at this moment.

More urgently needing to be rescued.

Copyright and original text from: http://masarang.hk/2018/08/03/little-liesje/