Chiam and Ganti

3rd February 2009

 

 

It’s a double birthday!

We are ecstatic to report that today, both Chiam and Ghanti gave birth to baby boys. Chiam’s was noticed as husbandry began in the morning, and Ghanti gave birth at lunch time. Both mothers and babies are doing really well and appear to have taken naturally to motherhood, which we expected of Chiam and is great to see from Ghanti.

 

It is quite incredible that both females gave birth on the same day – at least is will be easy to remember their birthday! Photographed here is Chiam – Ghanti spent her afternoon relaxing with her newborn in the night dens, so we were unable to photograph her. We’ll post a picture as soon as we have it.

 

Chiam 14ys and Ganti 12ys live together at Matang Wildlife Centre, they have both lived in the forest as semi-wild Orangutans but different circumstances have bought them both back into captivity.Both of these Orangutan lived very successfully in the forest and they will be kept in captivity for the shortest amount of time possible until a suitable release site is found

Chiam is a very strong and clever Orangutan she has no fear of humans and the worry is that she would approach local people and tourists if she came across them in the forest for this reason her shear strength makes her a liability in the forest around Kubah National Park and until a suitable area can be found to safely release her she remains at Matang Wildlife Centre.

Ganti shares a cage with Chiam and has been bought back to mate with Aman the resident dominant male, Aman has already succesfully fathered a child with Chiam and the hope is that Ganti can fall pregnant and then be released with Chiam.

Chiam is the dominant one of the pair and sometimes can make life quite difficult for Ganti in that she has first pickings at whatever is being offered. Just lately it has been nice to see Chiam actually sharing food with her and not being quite such a bully. It is interesting to watch Chiam make a tool out of anything you give her a bit of string and a stone makes a wonderful fishing rod and a piece of rock can be used to try and dig a tunnel to freedom.

Chiam enjoys nothing more than water play and if you give her a brush while you are cleaning her enclosure she will copy your actions and spend ages scrubbing her cage walls. She loves it when her bucket is filled with water especially on a hot day and she is able to have a bath. A bottle filled with water is an invitation to dig a hole pour the water in and make a mud bath Chiam can occupy herself for hours with this type of play.