Sumatran Orangutans at Durrel Zoo, Jersey
On my recent visit to the world-famous Durrell Zoo (in Jersey) I spent a long time simply watching the Sumatran orangutans; they are fantastic creatures and I feel you can only fully appreciate them after watching them for a while and seeing them interact with one another.
Out of all the animals at Durrell I would say that the Orangutans were my overall favourite, although the Slender-tail Meerkats and Western Lowland Gorillas were close.
Sumatran Orangutans are one of two orangutan species – the other being the Borneo orangutan. Sumatran Orangutans inhabit the Sumatra Island in Indonesia but due to habitat loss and hunting they are now critically endangered.
At Durrell Zoo the Sumatran Orangutan live in a very spacious enclosure which they also share with white-handed gibbons; both species appeared to be getting on very well and they are all great friends; the young of both species play together too! The enclosure also seems to reflect the gibbon and orangutans’ natural environment more than other zoos do; because of this I believe you get an experience similar to watching them in the wild – also the orangutans are more used to seeing humans and so won’t run away like they would in the wild.
The scientific name for these Sumatran orangutans is ‘Pongo abelii’.
Unfortunately I didn’t get as many videos and pictures as I would have liked as my camera ran out of battery and I didn’t have a spare.
These two videos that I took show the orangutans playing and swinging, in the indoor and outdoor parts of their enclosures:
All videos used on this website can be found on our Youtube Channel: MadOnAnimals.
August 22, 2010
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Maddia (Admin) · 
2 Comments
Tags: orangutans, sumatran orangutans, videos · Posted in: My Animal Experiences, Orangutans
2 Responses
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