Cece is in excellent health and now weighs 13kg. She has been spending more time at forest school over the last six months and has shown much improvement in her forest survival skills which is very encouraging. The new, larger forest school area has a greater variety of trees that vary in height, trunk diameter and strength. This has allowed Cece to develop her assessment skills as to which trees will support her body weight at various heights.
Cece impressed her keepers very early on by moving quickly in the stronger trees but more cautiously in the weaker trees. She has also proven to be very skilled at bending and swinging entire trees with tall, narrow trunks to reach other trees when there are no available branches to do so. This is an advanced forest skill that not many orangutans at this stage of rehabilitation have mastered.
Cece has never fallen to the ground during her forest school outings. Even if Cece has experienced a branch or trunk snapping whilst she is traveling in the canopy, she has always been able to recuperate and grab onto another branch whilst falling. Cece’s keepers have been very encouraged to observe her forest skills and other orangutans will be able to observe and learn from Cece’s activities. It is very interesting to see how different Cece is when she is in a forest environment. When she is in the cage, she appears to be a young, unskilled orangutan who is quite baby-like in her behavior. However, her true nature and ability shine through when up in the canopy where orangutans belong. This emphasizes how important it is that even very young orangutans have the chance to experience time in a natural environment early on in their rehabilitation journey.
One important forest skill Cece hasn’t mastered yet is nest building- in fact she has never been observed to build a nest at forest school. It is very much hoped that Cece will be inspired in this area with an increase in forest school time and observing other orangutans building nests. It is wonderful that Cece has developed so many new skills over the last six months. Thank you to all of Cece’s adopters for helping her on her journey to freedom.
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