Citrawan has continued to develop her jungle skills over the last six months. Fruit availability has been lower than last year due to air pollution from the extensive fires in late 2019 and heavy rain in December. However, Citrawan travelled and foraged actively during jungle school. Her feeding activity increased immensely in December, reaching 56% of total jungle school time. She fed on various items before fruiting season occurred, including insects, flowers and leaves. During the fruiting season, she ate aro, semantung, and liana fruits and malabai bark.
The orangutan keepers let her stay in the forest with Upin for two days in October. Citrawan showed good nest-building skills on the first evening she stayed in the forest, although she ended up joining Upin in his nest to sleep for the night. On the second day, Citrawan and Upin still travelled actively after sunset. Therefore, the trackers couldn’t see how they slept at night in the forest.
Citrawan spent most of her time 5-10 metres above the ground where she could find feeding items. She sometimes climbed higher than before (20 metres) to rest or play with other juveniles. Over the last few months, Citrawan has been paired with other juveniles except Bobina. Bobina bonded to Citrawan so she wouldn’t let Citrawan travel or come back to the enclosure. Citrawan developed good social activity with all of the other young orangutans, particularly Cece and Rosi. However, Citrawan is also confident to travel and explore by herself which is excellent.
Citrawan still greatly enjoys the various enrichment given to the orangutans by the keepers. These include feeder balls, leaf parcels, flowers, forest fruits and other activities to promote problem solving such as fishing for food treats with long sticks. Citrawan and her good friend Cece watch and learn how to do some of the activities from some of the adult orangutans in the next enclosure. Citrawan seems to prefer natural enrichments such as forest fruits and leaves, to artificial enrichments. Other orangutans including Upin, Femmi and Boncel often steal Citrawan and Cece’s food. The keepers need to separate Citrawan and Cece from other dominant orangutans in the enclosure during feeding times to ensure they receive enough food and their enrichment.
It is fantastic to see that Citrawan continues to learn new jungle skills and grow in confidence.
