Februar 2019

Potential candidate!

Since joining a full day’s forest school, Oscar has demonstrated good ‘forest skills’ improvement. He also shows great improvement in nest-buiding skills. He can make a good nest high above the trees. His good social behaviour with orangutans has also been witnessed when he shares his night nest with Terra. Additionally, Oscar knows some dangerous animals/insects in the forest such as snakes, caterpillars and bees. He also knows other forest inhabitants, such as which animals are poisonous and which ones he can play with. ®text and pictures provided by Masarang.hk and Sintang Orangutan Center

Don’t be afraid, Oscar!

Being afraid of something also happens in orangutans daily life in Tembak forest school.

Oscar is one of the bravest rehabilitated orangutans in Tembak forest school who is occasionally came closer to our staff and asked them to play with.

This time when our new behaviour staff named Haga (quite stout and tall) did his first time observation at Tembak forest school, Oscar looked little bit affraid of him. Oscar prefer to stay high above the trees and stay away from him.

Probably Oscar was affraid of him because that was their first time to meet one or might be because of Haga has bigger body than him.

(Text provided by Sintang Orangutan Center ®www.soc.or.id)

He is improving his problem solving skills such as tool use to get food by using a stick for instance to dig for ants nests. Even though he is capable of finding food in the forest, he seems to have become slightly lazy doing it himself.

While exploring the forest floor at the Tembak forest school, Oscar saw something that caught his attention - a grasshopper! He tried to catch it, but the grasshopper kept jumping out of reach. Oscar wasn´t giving up that easily and eventually managed to knock him down and have him as a little snack, before he peacefully continued exploring the forest floor. 

Grasshoppers form part of an orangutan diet. Orangutans are vegetarians, but they so also occasionally eat insects such as termites, ants and - grasshoppers.

The product from animals such as honey from a beehive is a nice treat, after you managed to source some with or without being stung by the bees, the later not always the most convenient way of getting your food. Molly learnt her lesson after being chased and stung by a swarm of angry bees who´s nest she sent tumbling down to the forest floor whilst attacking it with a dead log. Even with her swollen, she fought back and flattened several to make sure she got to her honey. Quite a sacrifice for honey..

Baby Victoria, who is still in Sintang, is fast improving her skills to catch insects. Normally when she got a piece of ants nest, she would bite it to get the ants out and then eat it. However, she had come to a tougher part of the ants nest that was too hard to bite through and had to device a plan. She grabbed some leaves with she wrapped around the nest to protect herself from getting bitten by the ants and smashed the nest on the floor. Her efforts paid off as the nest broke into pieces and ants came running out. Victoria now could eat them with ease from the leaves that functioned as a plate as well as protection.

®All content has been provided by the Sintang Orang Utan Center
www.soc.or.id