Miss Clarke's Adventures

Greetings from Sarawak, Borneo!

Currently, I am on a tour of the state of Sarawak in Malaysian Borneo.  After spending the last two months in extremely hectic and noisy cities, it is wonderful to swap the sound of blaring car horns and speeding motorbikes for the gentle humming of cicadas in the jungle!

My first port of call in Sarawak was at Matang Wildlife Centre.  The principle aim of Matang Wildlife Centre is to rehabilitate injured or orphaned orangutans and release them back into the jungle.  However, this is an immensely difficult and time consuming process as some of the rescued orangutans have been kept as pets since they were babies.

Whilst staying at Matang, I worked as an orangutan keeper!  My day began at 8 am when I had to thoroughly clean the orangutans’ night dens.  Sweeping the rubbish; hosing the den; then scrubbing it clean with disinfectant before giving it a final hose down was tiring work.  However, I loved every second as all the time I was being watched by the orangutans!  Each one would come right up to the enclosure and watch me intently!  Aman, a dominant male orangutan, watched me particularly carefully – probably making sure that I didn’t miss a spot!  Peter, another large male orangutan, also watched me with great interest and would often reach out to try and touch me.  Therefore, I had to be very careful as although orangutans are absolutely adorable and look quite gentle, they are exceptionally strong.  Without intending to hurt you even a young orangutan can inflict a serious injury!

After cleaning the enclosures, I would scatter an assortment of fruit around.  I would always try to hide the food so that the orangutans would have to use their brains a little to find the food.  It may sound like a very simple trick but these tiny gestures are all vital in the rehabilitation process.  Another way of encouraging these intelligent creatures to use their brains is to put small food items into a giant ball!  I stuffed nuts, sunflower seeds, dates and raisins into a huge ball (like a bowling ball).  The ball only had small holes drilled in it so the orangutan had to try and figure out how to extract the food items. It was fascinating to watch the orangutans and it made me appreciate just how intelligent and human like these  beautiful animals are.

One of my favourite orangutans was Ali who is just over a year old.  He is taken to the jungle twice a day by his keeper, Sandy.  During this time, Sandy does exercises and activities with Ali to try and re-introduce him to the jungle and encourage him to find food and live independently.  It’s a long process but Ali is doing well and hopefully he’ll soon be released into the wild where he belongs.

I thoroughly enjoyed my experience of looking after orangutans and I will certainly consider returning to Matang Wildlife Centre in the future to carry out more voluntary work.  However, for now I’m off to the jungle to try and spot wild orangutans! I’ll write again soon once I’m back from the jungle!

Love from,

Miss Clarke x