Seven-year-old Popi is thriving at our BORA rescue centre in East Kalimantan.
Popi having a snack at Jungle School
Over the last six months she has continued to grow in independence and confidence at Jungle School. Her forest skills including nest building, climbing, and finding food continue to improve. Popi has been learning from other orangutans and has been exploring more and climbing higher into the canopy. She is eating a range of forest food including flowers, leaves and fruits including wild banana. Popi has also been learning about the not so nice things in the jungle including ant and bee stings and allergies to some plant saps.
Popi is now content to spend the entire Jungle School session high in the canopy. This is a very positive shift in behaviour as Popi would often come to the ground to spend time with the orangutan keepers and beg for food. Being so young, and raised at BORA since she was a baby, wanting to be near the keepers is natural since they have been a mother figure in her life. Now, as Popi gets older, she is naturally seeking more independence and is growing in confidence which shows the benefits of receiving love and care from her keepers and being given the time to develop her skills and independence.
Popi weighs 16.5 kg and has a good appetite. Her favourite food at BORA is bananas and she is not a fan of oranges. Popi loves natural enrichment like whole coconuts, sugarcane, and rattan and she has some adult incisor teeth coming through.
Popi really is going from strength to strength in her rehabilitation journey and her carers at our BORA centre are so proud of her. If Popi continues to develop her forest skills then she will soon become a candidate to be moved to a pre-release island for her final stage of rehabilitation. Thank you to Popi’s wonderful adopters for helping her on this journey.
