Recently, Gokong moved to the small social group, joining orangutans Aruna, Lily and Dennis, as well as Cece, Kemala and Bobina, who recently moved from the baby house. This has given Gokong a chance to meet other orangutans while continuing to learn and develop natural behaviours.
He continues to be very mischievous, and is always seeking attention from his human caregivers, who try to encourage Gokong to become more independent. He has quickly become good friends with Dennis, and the two can often be seen together throwing branches and chasing the other young orangutans. This type of play will help Gokong continue to learn social skills, and we hope that over time he will become less accustomed to being around humans.
Gokong continues to go outside to forest school each week. However, he has begun causing problems, often coming down from the trees and encouraging the other orangutans to follow him! In the wild, orangutans very rarely come down to the ground; doing so is very unsafe, leading to possible attacks by predators and increasing their exposure to illness from picking up a high parasite load. Although Gokong’s care givers try to discourage this behaviour, Gokong often outsmarts them, causing them to continuously think of new forms of enrichment that encourage him to stay in the trees.
