As the keepers who care for the amazing animals in PECO Primate Reserve, we’re excited to thank you directly for your support of animal care and conservation programs at the Zoo, and share stories about one of our most charismatic charges - Batu, our baby orangutan!
 

It’s hard for us to believe that Batu is already a year old. It seems just a short time ago that we were finalizing our “birth management plan” to cover all possible problems we might face with our first orangutan birth in more than fifteen years. We began preparations as soon as we had confirmed that Tua was pregnant – through hormone analyses of urine samples that Tua so cooperatively provided. Human pregnancy tests don’t work on orangutans, so we had to send the samples to a special lab. You can imagine our excitement when we got the results.
 

And then the planning began. What if Tua had delivery problems? What if Tua didn’t know exactly what to do with her first baby? To prepare for every eventuality, we consulted with orangutan experts from across the country, trained Tua to allow visiting doctors to conduct an ultrasound, and even had obstetricians from local hospitals on call leading up to her due date. When Batu was finally born - it happened very quickly - keepers from the primate team were on duty; night and day, for the next week … just in case.
 

Fortunately, we were relieved and happy that none of our emergency plans were needed. Batu was born healthy and Tua has proven to be a spectacular first-time mother. Batu is turning out to be a very precocious orangutan infant and is climbing quite a bit on her own just as we might expect from a toddler. Although Tua was initially reluctant to have Batu out of reach, it sometimes seems she’s happy for some “down time”!
 

As animal keepers, our primary responsibilities are to provide the best physical and psychological environment possible for Tua, Batu and all the animals under our care.  However, we’re also reminded daily that Batu, Tua and Sugi are really ambassadors for orangutans in the wild and as part of an “insurance population” of orangutans in zoos, in the worst-case scenario that wild orangutans continue toward extinction.
 

Wild orangutan populations have been decimated by habitat loss, primarily as a result of the destruction of vast areas of tropical forest for logging and conversion to oil palm plantations. The rapid expansion of oil palm plantations in Borneo in response to international demand (the oil is used for cooking, cosmetics, mechanics, and more recently as source of bio-diesel) has accelerated this problem in recent years.

 

The Philadelphia Zoo is working directly to help orangutans survive on Borneo. Through a partnership with the Kinabatangan Orang-utan Conservation Program, we’re supporting a tree-planting program that restores orangutan habitat while also serving as part of our carbon offset program.

 

You, too, can have a direct impact on wild orangutans: check labels when purchasing products like soap, chips and candy - if something does have palm oil in it, you can opt to purchase a comparable product that does not.

 

And, of course, by responding generously to this appeal, you can help us in our daily care of our orangutan family, as well as with our conservation work on the island of Borneo.

 

On behalf of Tua, Batu and all the primates we care for, we are so grateful for your help,