Monti

Jack and Bandut, two big male babies also, are still in the Baby School, but, even though, Monti has become in a kind of dominant leader. It is unbelievable the transformation her character has gone through. She has always been pretty wild and independent, but now, when you are close to her, you can really feel that she is the dominant there. Babies are used to be with the baby sitters that take care of them.

The medical team tent to interact as less as possible with them to avoid disrupting them. But sometimes you have to be among them to give a medication or perform a check. Now you have to mind your back because Monti could be there swinging on a rope or a hammock ready to grab your hair or slam you! Always is a display of personality more than an aggression, like saying “get out of my territory”. And the best thing of these evolution is that Monti has become wilder, which is what we are always looking for in a rehabilitation process.

The wildest an orangutan it is, the highest the chances of doing well when back in the forest. Becoming a tough girl seems to have a positive effect on her health: she has not suffered even a cold in the last months. Must be the strong nature of the leader! She is now 11 kg and continues to be as playful as ever, expending long time up of the platforms and the trees and playing with the others. In the coming months, may be as soon as by the end of the summer, the new center IAR is building in Ketapang will be ready to receive the babies. This will be another massive change in Monti´s life, and it is going to be a very positive one.

The new center will provide the facilities to encourage the baby orangutans to reproduce the behavior they show in the wild. This is key in the long way that has necessarily to end in the forest, the place where Monti and all the others belong to. Surely with all the efforts of so many people Monti will be in not too long back to the place she never should have left.