In exciting news, Mary has now moved to the top of the waiting list to move to a pre-release island.
Mary enjoying a tasty snack after returning from Jungle School
Mary’s excellent forest skills and independence make her an ideal candidate to move to a forested island to fine tune her forest skills before being released. The orangutan keepers need to be highly vigilant when taking Mary out to Jungle School since she can move quickly through the canopy and disappear! They certainly keep fit trekking after her as she travels and forages high in the canopy. Mary rarely comes to the ground during her Jungle School outings. To encourage Mary back to her enclosure at the end of the day, the orangutan keepers ensure she has lots of leafy branches and enrichment waiting for her.
Mary is in excellent health and at ten years of age she weighs 18.2kg. She loves to eat a variety of food including fruits, vegetables, flowers, honey, and termites. She also greatly enjoys the assortment of enrichment given to the orangutans. Mary is now sharing an enclosure with Bonti and they have become good friends. Both have excellent forest skills and are very clever.
It was recently flower season in the BORA rescue and rehabilitation centre’s Jungle School forest area. One day Mary disturbed a beehive, and a huge swarm of bees became very agitated and began to chase and sting the orangutans and keepers. The keepers raced back to the enclosures, carrying the orangutans, and trying to protect them from being stung. Unfortunately, the orangutans and keepers were all stung. The orangutans protected themselves with hessian sacks in the enclosures. Thankfully, another orangutan keeper came quickly with matches to burn what could be burned to scare the bees away. Being chased and stung by bees is a tough lesson most orangutans endure during Jungle School. Wild orangutans also need to contend with swarms of bees at certain times of the year.
The abundance of flowers in the forest soon turned into fruit! This has been the biggest fruit season ever at the BORA centre. Mary and her orangutan friends have certainly enjoyed feasting on these tasty fruits whilst out at Jungle School and the keepers have had an extra tough time convincing the orangutans, especially independent Mary to return to the enclosures for the night.
It is wonderful that Mary is progressing so well on her rehabilitation journey. Thank you to Mary’s adopters for helping her get closer to jungle freedom.
