February 2019

Where is my cloth?

Do you remember Tom being inseparable from his cloth?

Since being kept as ‘pet’ by a family and for the first 2 months at Sintang Orangutan Rescue and Rehabilitation Centre, our caretakers couldn’t separate the cloth from Tom.

Everyday our caretakers always did their best to rehabilitate him, starting from changing his diet, treating his parasites and also, bit by bit, changing his ‘inseparable cloth’ with leaves.

For the first 2 months, it was quite difficult to separate Tom from the cloth and he always cried out loudly when the babysitters, Eni and Grace, took the cloth away from him. But now, he does not need the cloth to be with him night and day. He also enjoys playing with leaves every afternoon that are given by our caretakers. We are very glad about this breakthrough!

Our babysitters also frequently take Tom out from the enclosure and introduce him to the trees. Tom is still affraid to climb high alone. He prefer to climb in the lower canopy of trees. Besides, he likes to be carried piggyback by the babysitters, especially the female babysitters Eni and Yessi. ®text and pictures provided by Masarang.hk and Sintang Orangutan Center

Tom first milestone!

Tom, a little baby boy orangutan, recently was introduced by our caretakers to trees. At the first time he was too affraid to climb alone. He cried out loud and decided to climb down the tree and back to the caretakers.

The second chance, our caretaker climbed the tree first and finally Tom followed her and sat on her lap. For some moment Tom just sat down and observed the tree. When he already got used to, he started to explore the tree (climbed up and down, brachiate) alone but still he always looked back to make sure that the caretaker was still there.

It was a great milestone for Tom to begin his long journey of rehabilitation process at SOC till he can back to his trully home in the forest.

Text and picture provided by Sintang Orangutan Center ®www.soc.or.id