Enrichment

ENRICHMENT 5

I returned in April/May for a bief visit and two of the volunteers had come up with even more enrichment ideas it is great when volunteers take the time to think about the animals and try to enrich their lives.

The orangutans love nothing more than to explore a given a box full of seeds, nuts, stones, newspaper, sacks and plenty more they were kept amused for hours.

 

The macaques love to investigate and also enjoy live food such as mealworms and crickets it is often difficult to use live food in enrichment as it can crawl or fly away before the animal gets it  so a very clever idea of making up poridge and putting the  live food in the sticky substance and then giving it to them in a bottle provided a lot of amusement and delivered natural food to them as well, other substances could be used like rice or lentils and would produce the same effect. Rocky and Juan really enjoyed their porridge.

The happy sacks as they are called which can take volunteers days to make are still being handed out on a monthly basis and the orangutans still have not mastered a quick entry into these sacks, this is good as it means they are still challenging their attention and keeping them amused.

 

 

ENRICHMENT 4

Long Tailed or as they are commonly known crab eating macaque love water and large butts of water are available to them at all times, Matt uses his nearly every day sometimes just sitting for long periods in the water, it is very amusing to watch.

The Orangutans love to play with water and a bath on hot day is always welcomed also Chiam loves to get a scrubbing brush and wash herself and the walls down I think she thinks she is maybe be helpful. Chiam is very clever and can make a tool from almost anything she found a piece of string and a stone then tied a knot around the stone to make a fishing rod. This is a great form of enrichment as it occupies their mind even though Ganti does not have Chiams skills she still gets enrichment from watching Chiam’s activities.

  

 

 

 

 

 

We have had great success with the sun bears volunteers have put food as high as 4 metres up in the trees to encourage them to do the most natural thing sun bears do which is climbing, these bears spend a lot of time in trees and two of the bears are very eager to get their food from up trees, my hope is that within 6 months all the bears will have to climb for their fruit food and forage for live food such as insects as they would have to in the wild

The bears that have recently moved from quarantine into their new quarters are lacking enrichment in their night dens and plans to furnish them with logs and ropes are underway, volunteers did however manage to hang logs with holes drilled in them so that we can put honey food and insects in it, at the moment it is only a small token of enrichment but they do have the big enclosure outside to now go into hopefully it will not be long before the enrichment is finished.

Hillary our resident Orangutan man has shown us how to make hammocks out of ropes, these are used to imitate the nests that orangutans would normally build every night in the trees he made it look very easy but took us nearly all day to make one, all the orangutans will be made one and the hope is they will sleep in them. We have two young orangutan living in the forest who will also benefit from learning to sleep in the trees and Hillary is a great climber so smaller nests will be made for them and placed about 40 ft up in the trees to encourage them to sleep in a more natural environment.

It is sometimes difficult to enrich the lives of animals that we do not have easy access to, the 6 pig tailed macaque that live in cages can not always be enticed into their adjoining cage to allow us access to enter and enrich their home as much as I would like, so on a daily basis thinking up ways to occupy them through the bars is the best alternative. this usually has to be in some form of frozen food to make it easier for them to hold onto without losing it all , we were advised not to feed too many ice blocks as although we think it is hot, for the animals especially through the rainy season they are not always in need of something frozen and the concern is it could cause problems if they catch a chill, so although this enrichment is frozen it is not in great big blocks. To keep it as natural as possible I use coconut shells and fill with banana or mashed coconut heart boiled up with the coconut water, seeds and nuts and then freeze them, it does keep them occupied for a long time as they have to manouvere it round the cage bars. I also make parcels out of coconut husks these are sometimes better as they can be put through the cage bars. There are boxes on the side of the cages we can also place things in for them.

ENRICHMENT 3

 

 

 

Not all enrichment has to be about food and imaginative ideas are always welcome to keep the animals occupied. When food is used for enrichment it is interesting to involve some play or natural behavior before the animal get the food. Pineapple heads with or without frozen banana inside are a great hit with the macaque they spend ages ripping the prickly stems apart

The Long Tailed macaque are often called crab eating macaque so volunteers went crabbing at the estuary in Telega Air and to the delight of the macaque bought back bout 20 small crabs, Boboby in particular went crazy for them, living as they do in the wetlands crabs would be a staple part of their diet.

Boomer balls have had holes drilled in them and hung up outside the pig tailed macaque cages we have given them one each so there is no fighting, these ball can be filled with anything or just left empty for them to play with. It was interesting to see that they were confused about what to do with the balls and were not aware that there was any food inside them, playing with the balls is great and keeps them amused, for a long time. After the weekly trip to the market we put crickets and meal worms in the balls they soon figured out how to get the live food and it caused a lot of vocal enrichment as well, Macaque make the sweetest sound when they are enjoying something and the whole cage was alive with the sound of contented Macaque.

 

 

 

Bamboo sticks were cut up and filled with nuts fruit and seeds and given to the Orangutans Chiam even shared hers with Ganti, they peeled the bamboo into strips and got the food that way , it kept them occupied for a considerabl;e length of time, they were also given hollow plastic tubes which they all played a tune with it was quite amusing to hear the music coming from the Orangutan building.

 

Bamboo sticks have been filled with honey and left in the forest to attract termites these are then given to the bears to encouarge them to use their tongues to get the honey out and also eat termites.

Enrichment for the stork is increasingly difficult he is particularly lonely now as his long time mate was killed by a snake but he does enjoy playing with sticks and loves dried fish. It is also very difficult to enrich the Samba deer but this month a new enclosure at least 1 acre in size had been made for the 4 young deer I think they will get a lot of natural enrichment from being put in a densly wooded area

 

 

 

A non food enrichment which provides a lot of amusement, animals and people alike is showing the animals a reflection of themseleves in a mirror, Aman was very quiet and took it all in staring intensly at himself fully aware it was him and not another orangutan, Doris on the other hand played with her reflection handing herself sticks and spitting she was very amusing. The macaques showed no interest at all other than trying to play with it.

 

The volunteers enjoy thinking up new ideas on how to use the local and forest food that we have and coconut shells filled with jack fruit skin or banana make tasty treats. One of the less glamorous jobs of enrichment is collecting daily the live food for the animals it is not a very pleasant feeling when the crickets are moving about in your hands.

 

 

Large hessian sacks have been filled with coconuts and sewn up, these are made by putting coconut in sack and sewing across the sack then folding it inside out and putting seeds in then stitching again keep repeating the process until you have a very hard to undo parcel for the Orangutans this was done last month as well and gives them so much pleasure it really does take them ages to open up these parcels and I am sure they are not aware of just how long it takes the volunteers to make them sometimes days rather than hours.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

One of the most successful enrichments I have done has to be when I filled socks with crickets meal worms seeds and fruit tied them in a knot repeated the process and then tied the end with a bit of string, these were given to all the macaques and it took them ages to get everything out of them , Matt a long tailed macaque who would normally live on crabs took his straight to his water bucket and pulled it too bits soaking wet, he was still playing with it 3 hours later. The pig tail macaque all enjoyed their socks and spent nearly all day playing with them, it was funny to see how they reacted when they came across the live food Juan initailly was really scared of his sock as he could feel the crickets moving inside and it took him ages before he was confident enough to hold it and start trying to get into it he kept throwing it around his cage.it was a great form of enrichment.

 

ENRICHMENT 2

 

 

This months enrichment has concentrated a lot on the fact that there is an abundance of Durian and Jack Fruit around in fact everywhere you look someone is selling it, I try and buy from the same seller each week and am certainly getting better prices now as they come to know me.It is good for the animals to be fed the foods that are in season as this would be the most natural way they would feed in the wild.

 

 

Jack fruit has a very similar smell to Durian very sickly and needs to be left outside, like Durian it is a great favourite with the local people as well as the animals. All the animals at the centre except the leopard cats enjoy it, the bearcats, civet and even the porcupine

 

 

 

 

The weekly trip to the market was once again colourful , there are an array of spices and a sticky sugar cane substance which is ideal for mixing with lentils to make a tasty paste for hiding in logs for the animals, there seems to be so much fruit about I bought rambutan which is red and has a prikley outer shell but very sweet fruit inside, longan and longsat small yellow fruits not unlike lychees to eat, Jambu fruit which tastes like a hard apple and the most interesting to watch the animals , a green pea like plant called Petai, the macaque especially enjoy peeling the skin away to reach the very tasty pea.

 

 

 

 

Pumpkin is also readily available in all sizes and the Orangutans love the challenge of opening these as much as eating them

As well as buying the fruit , we are also picking it from the trees surrounding Matang Wildlife Centre and introducing it to all the animals especially Orangutan and Sun bears as part of their training for rehabilitation as these are the local fruits they would naturally find in this area.The fruit stimpo is still flowering and all the animals love it I manged to find on one branch the bud , flower and the fruit It is the open fruit that they enjoy

 

 

 

 

 

 

Last month Aman was lucky enough to get a whole banana plant that has been destroyed by the wind and Doris had been less than amused to be left out so when another banana heart and banana plant was found she was given it. The red heart of the plant is the first thing the Orangutan eat even before the bananas and is also very popular with local people to make soup out of.The deer tried to help Doris eat the banana heart and she quickly put it in her sack so they could not reach it and ate it from there.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Blood has been smeared on the trees in the bear enclosures in an attempt to get them to climb, once again Durian and Jack fruit has been hidden in their enclosure to encourage them to look for their food, the daily scatter of seeds and live food has resulted in Corrine ripping open an old log and climbing to reach fruit up a tree. Corrine and Situ both females are showing a lot of natural behavior since being let out into their new enclosure

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Leaves have become a daily part of enrichment if not for bedding for play and probably for all the animals at the centre the most natural thing for them to have around them, these animals sleep in a nest of leaves, use them for shelter and also eat for nutrition and medicinal needs.

 

ENRICHMENT 1

 

I am working daily with the volunteers to provide an enrichment plan that is based entirely on natural foods found in the forest. I am using leaves for bedding and also play, the orangutans use the big leaves to shelter from the rain and the sun and also just to have fun.

 

 

It’s currently the durain season, this is a fruit has a foul smell and a custard like fruit inside. The orangutans love this fruit and on exploring the local forest we have found wild durian growing. Durian fruit is also loved by the deer who eat all the skins the orangutans leave. Coconuts have been sewn into hessian bags and Aman a large male took 15 mins to open his I’m, not sure if he was amused or frustrated.

 

Wild fruits are in abundance and also make a very colourful picture. The favourite of all the animals at the centre being a pink flower like fruit with small red seeds inside called stimpo, the deer especially like them , one of the volunteers, Hugh, has a passion for tree climbing and gets all the wild figs for us. It is very interesting how many fruits can be found in a relatively small area.

 

We have also started a weekly shop with the volunteers going to the local market for fresh fruit seeds and vegetables for all the animals. This is of interest to everybody and also gives us an opportunity to mix with the local people and tell them about the centre whilst also giving them our custom .

The live food has been a great success and we now have the contact number of a local supplier for meal worms and crickets – the macaquettes and the bears go crazy for them.

 

 

The animals to benefit most from the enrichment are the bears, every day 2 volunteers go with their keeper and scatter their food around their enclosure. Also seeds and nuts cover the whole enclosure enabling the bears to forage all day long, there is no longer any fighting, volunteers then enrich the night dens with things like honey and eggs ready for when they come in at night. Enriching the sunbears surroundings by hiding food in thier logs and trees makes them more interested in thier surroundings. It was great to watch them come and our and search for food instead of scraping over it in one pile. There was no fighting this time and it kept them entertained for hours.