ZOO NEGARA JUNE 2009
Orangutan Experience

Volunteers:
• Michael Head
• Wendy Head
• Lucy Piper
• Jemma Farrell


Enrichment
Everyday the group happily split in half so whilst two people got the cleaning and scrubbing done in the night dens the others collected leaves to provide the orangutans and chimpanzees with their daily leaf enrichment. Aside from this we also out the following activities………..

Lepat Nasi
One of the apes’ favourites the volunteers had fun making this delicacy by mixing sticky rice and raisins then sealing it into small banana leaf parcels.

Fruit Smoothies
Using the blender donated by a previous group we made smoothies for the apes by blending a mixture of guava and papaya. Although they get these fruits quite often the animals enjoy the change in texture.



Happy Sacks
This month the group made happy sacks that were very loosely tied together. Although this made it easy for the orangutans to extract the seeds and honey from inside, they had lots of fun using the hessian sacks for other games, like hide and seek, and even spent time washing them in the mote surrounding the exhibit.

Bottle piñata
This was a new creation devised by our volunteer Lucy Piper. Our apes love to be given plastic bottles in which we normally place a few seeds and raisins, a drop or two of honey and some leaves and sticks, before screwing the lid on and handing it over. To make it even more difficult for them to get the treats inside Lucy suggested we paper mache the bottle all over , however when we tried giving a bottle to Chokey he obviously recognised the shape and immediately started chewing the top so it didn’t take long to get in! Next time we plan to use more paper to make it harder to tell which end is the top –great new enrichment idea though!

Ice Hose
Another new enrichment idea this month was cutting up small lengths of plastic hose pipe and filling it with sweet corn and raisins then putting in the freezer overnight. The apes really loved this treat especially as the weather has been so hot. To our surprise they didn’t try to bite through the hose even though their strong teeth would have easily allowed this. Instead they found different techniques including holding it over the mouth until it thaws and bites drop down, or running it through the teeth to squeeze out the mush from inside! Tsunami with her small hands used her fingers to poke out the treats from inside her tube. Although Sulong chewed his hose many of the orangutans and chimps were content just to play with the empty tubes, some even handed them back in hope of a refill!

Banana stumps
The volunteers also made banana stump treats by chopping into sections a banana tree and making holes in which they put sun flower seeds and raisins. They were interested to see how the orangutans eat only the middle of the banana trunk but pick apart the rest to find the seeds.

Punkey’s Treasure
During our daily raking of the orangutan exhibit one morning we went to clear away a piece of pink plastic (probably thrown in by a careless tourist) and found something very interesting underneath. Carefully arranged on top of another small piece of plastic was a collection of rocks, which had been covered with the pink plastic and hidden between two tree roots. We are careful to remove rocks from the exhibit as some of our orangutans are able to throw quite hard and we don’t want to risk anyone getting hurt. However we can’t remove all of them and one of our orangutans had clearly been collecting them as it seemed the rocks under the plastic had been selected and neatly arranged. We put the plastic back and left the collection in place, watching over the next few days to see who they might belong too. Then one day when we called the orangutans over to give them their enrichment we realised our lovely Bornean orangutan Punkey was sitting in the same spot and seemed unusually reluctant to come over even for her enrichment. We could only presume she was perhaps guarding something of greater value than a happy sack –a collection of precious stones!!

Labels: baby orangutan, bornean orangutan, enrichment, orangutan, orangutan experience, zoo negara

Here are some photo's from Zoo Negara taken in May 2009:



Giraffe Birth at Zoo Negara



The new baby orangutan at Zoo Negara



Enrichment prepared for the big cats

Labels: baby orangutan, enrichment, giraffe birth, zoo negara

ORANG UTAN EXPERIENCE 6th May 09 – 21st May 2009

The Volunteers
From left:
- Angeliki Repapis (37, England)
- Emily Baigent (22, England)
- Amie Hall (18, England)
- Laura Mallet (18, England)

This Month’s Activity

In May 2009, Zoo Taiping
received four very enthusiastic volunteers. Angeliki was an air hostess before she decided to migrate to Manila with her husband. Emily is a university student while Amie and Laura are friends traveling together after their A levels.

Throughout this month there are a few enrichments that we have done besides husbandry work cleaning exhibits and night dens at the Primate section.

The Orangutan’s night dens are filled with leaves and twigs that we collected around the zoo compound in hoping that the orangutans will show signs of nest making. The next morning we observe no signs of nest but surely the orangutans will prefer the leaves for the night for playing with!



With the Orangutans, Wasabi got an adventure with a strip of rattan with thorns still on it. We were there observing her for sometime, worried she might cut herself. But she proves herself intelligent! She manages to rip it by climbing to the platform with the rattan in one hand and push the rattan to the floor. By bending the rattan she manages to break it and strip it.

Next we gave her a big half rotten log and we put some nuts and raisins and we drizzle some honey into it. She played with it for almost three days. At first she went for the honey then the nuts and raisins. After eating all the treats, she began to roll the log and trying to push it around her cage. In the rotten log were natural insects like ants, moths, spider and etc. In the log was hollow and she tried to peek in and see what she can pull out.



We have made a few puzzle feeders as well for Amy the Ruffed Lemur, for the marmosets and tamarin and for Simon and Sally the White Handed Gibbon.

Simon and Sally reactions were terrific. We were a bit worried that they might fight for the coconut feeder because we made only one. We approach the gibbons the same way as with the lemur. Half of their food was presented normally on the platforms and the other half we put in the feeder. We hung it up in their cage from the cage roof. Simon was the first to check it out and Sally came later. They actually took turns to fish out the fruits in the feeder. They ignored the foods on the platform for the first 30 minutes. This feeder made them hung by one hand while the other hand is in the feeder.

The puzzle feeder for Amy the lemur and Simon and Sally the gibbons are similar made out of coconut. The top of the coconut were chopped off and the inside of the coconut were cleaned. Then we fill it with fruits and leaves (green leafy vegetables and browse) and hung it up. We started with Amy’s with half of her feed in her normal feeding plate and the other half in the coconut. She went to the coconut first and sniffed it before going to her plate. After a while she started to chew and put her long mouth inside the opening on top of the coconut. Only by the next day that she begun to pull out the browse and fruits with her hands. This month we also made two swings for Amy. One was made using a plastic basin and the other using a branch.



The marmosets and the tamarins got their apple feeder which is actually an apple with lots of small holes filled with sunflower seeds, peanuts, raisins and honey. The feeder have a through and through hole in the middle of the apple so we can put stings and hang it up. It is a very successful enrichment for them because after they ate all the treats they move on to the apple. The best part is this feeder made them hang upside down and other poses just to get to the tasty foods.

Project Progress
This month we manage to make a lot of enrichments not only for the Orangutans but also for the other Primates such as the marmosets and tamarins, gibbons and lemur. The materials we used in making these enrichments are more natural as well and most of them are not expensive.

Labels: great orangutan project, orangutan, orangutan volunteer

ORANG UTAN EXPERIENCES
6th March 09 – 20th March 2009
&
ZOO ASSISTANT
6th March 09 – 31st March 2009

TAIPING ZOO

By: Ili Dayana Sudirman

The Volunteers




From left:
- David Langdon (24, England, OUE)
- John Dennet (24, England, ZA)
- Kimberly Ellison (23, England, ZA)
- Emily Bowman (22, England, OUE)
- Sian Hutchby (20, England, ZA)
- Anne Oestherheld (22, German, OUE)
- Katrin Lahmer (22, German, OUE)

 This Month’s Activity

March 2009 was full of fun. All the volunteers got along very well and worked hard on each task given. For the OE program, routine husbandry work and enrichments for the great apes were carried out as usual with a bit more emphasis on the Chimpanzees. This month the chimps are stressed because of the mating phase: there are 5 females and only 1 male! By giving them lots more enrichment in the form of frozen fruits, the chimps’ attentions were distracted away from fighting over mating turns. Meanwhile, for the Orangutans, everything is as usual; cool, steady and relaxed. The orangutans are so calm we think they are monks; meditating! Wasabi was so happy to get 2 new boy-volunteer-friends (Dave and John) that she almost ignored the other girls and me!. We gave her lots of leaves and flowers to play with and eat. Then, later on everyone took turns to play with her while observing her behavior as well. Wasabi is so energetic that after everyone has done their part in turn, she sits there with sparkling eyes for another round of play chase and tickle! It seems as though what she really need is not another puzzle feeder or ice block but a friend as a playmate.

The ZA volunteers did not missed out on the fun time spent with Wasabi because they worked at other sections during the morning doing husbandry work and later joined the OE after lunch for enrichments. The ZA volunteers; John, Kim and Sian worked at a few sections: chimpanzees, elephants, tapirs and hippopotamus, savannah, vet clinic, primate section and sun bears. They enjoyed working with the sun bears the most. Other than that, all our volunteers participated on helping the Zoo transfer flamingoes to a new exhibit. Before releasing them to their new enclosure, we collected a f
some data (microchip number, length of their legs and their DNA sample from feathers) for the Wildlife Department/ PERHILITAN in determining whether the lengths of their legs are influenced by their gender. The flamingoes were tagged and given de-worming tablets as well.

Project Progress

During this month we collected a data through observing Wasabi; the 6 years old female Bornean orangutan. Emily Bowman helped us out because she has experience in observing animal behavior and collecting data. I have the hard copy of our observation data and later on will transfer it to Leo for futher discussion. Our main concern is Wasabi have been repeatedly regurgitating/ reindigesting for more than 3 months. At other section, volunteers enjoyed scrubbing the sun bear cage floor and walls for 2 days straight. They felt satisfied looking at the moss free floor and hope that the bears appreciate it as well. This month was actually the first month we had the opportunity to work with the sun bears and hopefully we can continue our effort here through husbandry work and enrichments activities.

Volunteers Feedback

The volunteers were very satisfied with their scrubbing work at the sun bear cages. They were actually hoping that they had more time to spend there working on cleaning the cages, make the cages a bit brighter and pleasant. The best part was when we were scrubbing enthusiastically; Jothee the sun bear zoo keeper joins us! It’s a really good thing when the zookeepers spend time with volunteers and show their effort. It is also a touching ending for the Zoo Assistant volunteers because they felt really accepted there.

Other News

Zoo Taiping’s tiger cubs are doing well and this month we got to pet them!It was an invitation from the zoo keeper himself and we did not take any pictures (not to exploit the cute cuddly cubs).

Labels: orangutan volunteers, sunbears, volunteer with orangutans

ZOO NEGARA FEBRUARY 2009
Orangutan Experience

Volunteers:
• Izzy Lim (UK)
• Jessica Atherden (UK)
• Tess McCarthy (UK)
• Conny Knudsen (Denmark)
• Michael Urup Christensen (Denmark)



Our month got off to a good start when we received packages from America! Some of our past volunteers had responded to my appeal for Boomer Balls (orang-utan proof toys!) and had 5 of the things sent over from the USA. Trying these out with Tsunami, Chokey and Ana was great fun! Chokey and Tsu were very frustrated at not being able to bite into the heavy duty plastic, whilst Ana treated her pretty pink ball as if it were the best thing that’s ever happened to her, cradling it under one arm, or sitting quietly threading leaves through the holes we had drilled in it. Thank you so much to Amy Parker, Jo Dixon and Jocelyn Howard for their kind sponsorship of these cool new toys!

Enrichment:
As well as the daily husbandry activities of cleaning out cages, raking the exhibits and preparing food, the group also took part in the following enrichment activities…..




• Dragon fruit and papaya smoothies –we used the blender donated by the November team to whip up a nice dragon fruit and papaya smoothie for the apes.
• Bottle treats –using 1.5l plastic bottles the volunteers created bottle treats by adding some flavouring, a few raisins and a blob of honey. As usual our chimp Joe kept his bottle for the next few days so he could refill it from the tap and carry it around in case he felt thirsty at any time!
• Sock treats –using brightly coloured football socks, we stuffed scrunched up newspaper inside and a few pieces of date or sunflower seeds, before tying them tightly in knots. Some of these were given directly to the apes, whilst others were tied on the outside of cages to encourage the boys and girls to work that bit harder for their treats!
• Box treats –a really favourite for our orangutans, we filled up large cardboard boxes with brightly coloured shredded paper plus lots of leaves and a few titbits to keep them occupied whilst in the exercise enclosures.
• Banana stumps –cutting down a big banana tree and then dividing up the stump into sections, these were given to the apes to supplement their diet and as a special treat. The chimps Joe and Max especially enjoy these!
• Ice Blocks –Another favourite of our apes, especially on a scorching hot day, the volunteers made ice blocks using cordial and cranberries, which went down very well.
• Boomer balls –we drilled holes in 3 of the 5 boomer balls donated by past volunteers and put titbits inside (right). Long after they had gotten their treats the orangutans had fun throwing the boomers around, catching them, rolling them, standing on them, filling them with water……. What fun to watch!
• Durian –this spiky fruit can make up a large proportion of a male orangutans diet in the wild (females are smaller and may lack the strength to open the fruit) when it is available. It is such a favourite Conny and Michael, our two Danish volunteers bought 2 of the smelly things for the apes. We made sure the females got their share too by opening the hard cases (they look like a giant conker) and distributing the flesh between all the orangutans and the chimpanzees too. They loved it!
• Mirrors and bubbles –as always playtime is encouraged by showing the younger apes their reflections and blowing bubbles for them to chase and play with.
• Ball cocks –specifically aimed at our overweight orang-utan, Awang, these plastic balls were drilled, filled with a few treats and wired to the ceiling to encourage him to climb. This he did, but he spread his activity out so thinly over the week that I’m not sure he burned many calories. Could be back to the drawing board in our effort to get him moving!
• Leaf collecting –we made sure that most days the orangutans were supplied with plenty of leaves. This not only enables them to make nests but also to supplement their diets and to self-medicate should they be feeling under the weather.

Labels: malaysia, orangutan volunteers, orangutans, volunteer with orangutans

ZOO NEGARA DECEMBER 2008

Orangutan Experience
Volunteers:
Leigh Bates
Keely Adams
Martin Craswell

This month we had an all English team at Zoo Negara, comprising three very hardworking volunteers. Despite the hot weather, the group worked hard on cleaning activities to make up for their small number, but were experts at scrubbing and raking by the end of the two weeks!

Enrichment Activities

Leaves: The volunteers helped to collect leaves as often as possible to enable the orangutans to display their natural nesting behaviours and as an addition to their diet.
Piñatas: We once again made piñatas, both using newspaper and pieces of hessian sack. We filled these with leaves and a few seeds wrapped tightly in paper. The hessian worked well but did not dry very quickly so if we try this again we will have to bring in hairdryers to do the job a bit faster. The paper mache piñatas worked really well, encouraging big male Awang to climb to the top of his enclosure and get some much needed exercise!
Watermelon juice: A real favourite of the apes we mashed up watermelon to make nice refreshing juice for them.
Blended banana and papaya smoothies: The gift of a blender from last months group was well using in taking some of the bananas and papayas from the daily food allowance and making it into a juice. The apes were then given straws to try and get the juice from a jug held outside of the cage.
Box treats: Utilising cocoa and star fruit found around the zoo we made box treats for the orangutans and chimps. This time we added a twist by filling the box with brightly coloured shredded paper. Although the chimps did not react to the colours, Awang the orang-utan was fascinated (left), showing more interest in the paper than the treats hidden inside. After unpacking his box he gathered up all the paper and spent hours putting it into piles and packing and re-packing his box. For the very first time I actually saw him “smile” which was wonderful!
Marmite challenge: Taking inspiration from Ili at Zoo Taiping, we ran a taste test to see whether apes love or hate marmite! Like their human relatives, we found a mixed response with some of them eating their marmite rice really slowly savouring every grain. Rambo the chimp showed the most amusing reaction backing away from his portion and looking at us like we were insane when we demonstrated eating this strange food!
Lepat nasi: We made sticky rice parcels wrapped in banana leaves to give to the apes as a special treat.
Dragon Fruits: To add variety to the apes’ diet we bought dragon fruits to the ape centre, giving some of them whole and some cut into pieces.
Bubbles and mirrors: The volunteers were provided with non-toxic bubbles and mirrors to use during playtime with the apes.
Christmas presents: As a festive treat we got Christmas presents for all the apes which the volunteers wrapped up in Christmas paper. Punkey, Chokey and Anna were all given hats, Katie got a bright pink t-shirt and the rest were all given football socks stuffed with paper and sunflower seeds!

Construction
At the keepers request we set to work making another feeder tube for the front exhibit (Awang and Manja). Using drain pipes and end caps we made the tube and hung it on the outside of the bars to the side of the exhibit. We held our breath as Awang put his huge fingers through the bars and squeezed the pipe, which it withstood, but sadly when he pushed down on it he managed to break the point at which we had wired it to the bars, so next month we will have to rethink the design a bit and try again. The first pipe we made has been put to great use and is especially good for keeping Katie occupied (above) for long periods of time by putting a small amount of semi-cooked oats, mashed banana and raisin mix into the bottom of some (but not all!) of the tubes. She then sets to work making various tools to extract the sticky food.

Around the zoo:


This month we were visited by staff from Zoo Johor (who received our male Bornean Abu on a breeding loan last month). They wanted us to show them how to make a fire hose hammock to enrich Abu’s environment in his new home. Apparently he is doing very well and sounds much more active and happy at Johor than he was with his limited space at Zoo Negara.