OUR PROGRAMME
Rescued orangutans learn essential skills during the rehabilitation process
Together with the Indonesian Ministry of Environment and Forestry, we rehabilitate orphaned orangutans who have been rescued from conflict with humans and prepare them for a life in their natural habitat, the jungle. When the orphans reach adolescence, we rehome them in a protected forest where they can live in freedom.
From Nursery to Forest School to Jungle Academy:
Aligning the rehabilitation process with natural child development is based on appreciating orangutan psychology including the attachment theory and learning.
Most of the orphans are younger than five years old when they arrive at our programme. This means they are still dependent on having a mother. Therefore, these infants are too young to survive in the forest independently.
Our specialty is to provide ‘orangutanised’ caregivers as surrogate mothers who act as ‘safe base’ and, at the same time, model the vital skills for the orangutans (OUs) to learn. By immersing the orphans 24h into the forest environment and providing the ‘orangutanised’ caregivers, we avoid that the orangutans become overly ‘humanised’. Our aim is that our orphans develop a proper species-identity plus all the practical skills they will later need, even though they are raised by humans.
New arrivals stay in quarantine for about 2 months to avoid disease transmission. If the orangutan is healthy, i.e., free of handicaps, transmittable diseases and long-term or transitory illness, rehabilitation starts, and the orangutan is transferred to Forest School.
Our babies sleep in the nursery and spend the day in kindergarten with their surrogate mother. Infants from age 2 onwards attend Forest School Level 1. In Forest School Level 1, the surrogate mothers provide protection from predators, act as role models for learning ecological and social competences, and as bonding partners for healthy emotional development.
The infants spend the whole day in the forest but spend the night protected in a sleeping cage. Gradually, they move on to Forest School Level 2. They show more initiative and depend more on other orangutans for social interactions and learning than before. They start making night nests and spend more and more nights in the forest.
From around weaning age, juveniles attend Forest School Level 3. These older orangutans already know which foods are eaten in periods when fruit is scarce. They spend more and more time on their own, but are also more courageous when they meet new orangutans. At this age they are good role models for the younger ones.
An orangutan is competent and ready for rehoming when he/she is active in trees, knows about food, sleeps in a nest, can make friends with other orangutans, and avoids danger.
As adolescents, the orphans should have acquired all the vital skills to survive in the forest independently. This is also the time when they seek adventures and actively try to get away from their surrogate parents. That is the right time to be re-introduced into their natural habitat. After the transfer to the release site, they must adapt to their new home. We aim to facilitate this adaptation process by offering them the company of their familiar caregivers during Jungle Academy, to finish their schooling. During this last step of their education, they will get to know their new home, establish a home range, and learn about food plants and dangers that were not present at their Forest School. As they gain these competences, they gradually become fully independent from their foster parents. They will be ready to spend their future life as released orangutans living in freedom.
FROM BABIES TO ADOLESCENTS
The infant development of free-living orangutans and the occurrence of ontogenetic milestones

Babies (0-2 years)
During their first 2 years of life, orangutans are called babies. They are totally dependent on their mother and stay in permanent body contact with her.

Infants (2-6 years)
Orangutans aged 2 to 6 years are called infants.
From the age of 3 years onwards infants show more independent locomotion and are carried by their mothers less and less. Body contact to the mother decreases to less than 10 percent of day time. Infants start building a nest, they know how to protect themselves when it is raining, and they eat solid food. Weaning starts between 4 and 6 years.

Juveniles (6-8 years)
Orangutans aged 6 to 8 years are called juveniles. At the age of 6 or 7 years, juveniles are completely weaned, and they are able to build their own night nests. Their activity budgets resemble those of adult orangutans. The mother is now less tolerant and no longer plays with the juvenile, and often already conceives and gets pregnant with the next younger sibling. Puberty starts at the age of 7 to 9 years.

Adolescents (8-15 years)
Orangutans aged between 8 and 15 years are called adolescents. When the offspring is around 8 years old, usually a younger sibling is born. The adolescent orangutan is barely in proximity to the mother anymore and at the age of around 10 years he/she ranges independently.
Orangutans aged 15 years and older are called adults. At the age of 15 years, on average, a female orangutan gives birth to her first child.