Beautiful Rahayu currently lives on Besar island with 10 other orangutans at the International Animal Rescue’s orangutan rescue centre in West Kalimantan.
Rahayu relaxing in the canopy
Rahayu had a medical examination in early February 2023. She was deemed in excellent health by the medical team and currently weighs 33 kilograms, a normal weight for female orangutans of her age.
Because of her limited vision, Rahayu ends up eating more provisioned food brought by the animal keepers rather than foraging extensively for natural food around the island. She is not picky when it comes to food preferences, and she eats all kinds of food brought by the keepers! Even with her stomach full, Rahayu has been seen foraging around the island quite often. In fact, for the last two months, Rahayu was seen quite often moving around the island looking for forest fruits, bark and insects. However, Rahayu's foraging ability is still relatively static in terms of the types of food she forages for. One of the main reasons behind this is due to a considerably low food diversity on the island during this time. On a very positive note, Rahayu is now much more adept at finding and ‘fishing’ for termites!
Rahayu tends to have a more dominant attitude near animal keepers or babysitters. She is a smart girl! She is also quite adept at making nests now and usually makes one to two nests every day! Rahayu often uses the old nest for naps during the day and builds a new one for a comfortable night’s sleep.
To keep her busy and further develop her gross motor and foraging skills, Rahayu receives enrichment from the animal keepers twice a day. Her current favourite enrichment is hollowed wooden sticks filled with fruit, nuts, or seeds. Sometimes she also gets honeycomb, which she loves so much!
We are so proud of the progress that beautiful Rahayu has made despite the challenges she faces. Thank you to Rahayu's adopters for your years of support.
