Gus (our female orphan) has had a busy few weeks which has included celebrating her official birthday with the Clifford Family from the UK. Emily and Tom turned ten on 16th August and as we estimated that Gus was about two years old, we decided that she should share their birthday! Tom and Emily also raised an amazing one hundred and fifty pounds at their school with cake and bookmark sales which will go towards kitting out the new orang utan training area with ropes and barrels and strong fencing. Thank you very very much.

The training area has been designed with a group of infants in mind which will allow Gus to bond and form a social group in readiness for a (semi) wild life in years to come. Volunteers and local keepers have worked hard to build the very impressive structure that you can see. A local metal works have custom made the fence posts which will need to contain a group of active orange toddlers with the strength and ingenuity of human teenagers!



A second feeding platform has also been completed this month in the Jungle which Gus seems to love spending many hours on familiarising herself with her native habitat.

Gus’s ability to win hearts continues and she’s been featured in various media such as a Malaysian documentary about orang-utans in Sarawak, The Borneo Post and a recent BBC Wildlife magazine.

July at Matang as been so busy it’s flown by leaving us with little time to update you on what’s been going on!

Orangutans

Doris (aged 7 and a half years) has been confined for a few weeks while a big wall was being built to divide the bottom half of her (large) enclosure off for the Sun Bears’ new home. She has very much appreciated all the companionship of the volunteers and the ingenious puzzles they’ve given her to keep her brain and body occupied. Special thanks to volunteer Will from the USA for devoting hours of his time to quality chats with her and Bill for his super duper puzzle feeder!! While she was indoors, it was a good chance to paint a wonderful jungle themed mural on her wall, complete with artist hand prints (which she tried to lick off!). She is back outside enjoying the sun and her admiring public.

Crocodiles
Two new crocodiles have arrived at the centre and are now living with the False gharial (a fresh water reptile that resembles a crocodile), seemingly contentedly. The remaining seven estuarine crocodiles seem to have done some wife swapping and slide under the fence between the two enclosures as they please - keeping us on our toes! Their food, the hens, have also enjoyed a makeover of their pen, which we like to think will make their lives a little more comfortable!

Deer
The two orphan deer, Laurence and Heather, are growing fast and enjoying the time spent with them by volunteers. Laurence is becoming particularly fond of Heather but is rather more cautious of Gus who does tend to bounce around him and be generally unpredictable, dropping off the fence, combat -style right next to him.

Also this month volunteers have helped to put up and renew the animal interpretation signs, clean the drainways and mingled with the local community by getting involved with the resorts and beaches

As always we really appreciate the hard work and time the volunteers put into the centre.