What is Behavioural Enrichment?

Orangutans are highly intelligent animals. In the wild, they spend most of their day traveling and searching for food. They also build arboreal nests to rest in during the heat of the day and overnight. Currently, there are over 600 orphaned orangutans housed in care centres in Borneo and Sumatra. Many of these are undergoing Jungle School training to enable them to be released back into the wild.

It is imperative that orangutans at these care centres are provided with Behavioural Enrichment to keep them mentally and physically stimulated. If orangutans are confined and bored then this can result in stereotypic and negative behaviours including pacing, hair plucking, rocking and regurgitation of food.

Food enrichment

One of the best ways to keep orangutans busy in pre-release enclosures is to provide food in various puzzle feeders. This encourages problem solving, tool use and natural foraging behaviour. Some popular food enrichment at the care centres include -

• Dip tubes where the orangutans must use a stick to poke down a tube or into a log etc to get food such as honey.
• Feeder balls where pieces of fruits and vegetables, seeds and nuts are put in hard plastic. balls with a small hole and stuffed with leaves etc to make food difficult to get out.
• Food hidden in hessian sacks, metal mesh boxes, wrapped in leaf parcels, etc.
• Wild food sources including fruits, leaves, rotan and termite nests to increase wild food knowledge.

Feeder ball stuffed with food treats and leaves (left) and branches collected for orangutan nesting (right)

Check out this video of Owi and Berani at BORA using their wooden enrichment blocks.

Enclosure enrichment

Orangutans need to be able to climb and maintain some physical fitness whilst in a pre-release enclosure. Flexible rubber-ropes are excellent to use in enclosures as they create varied, complex, and changeable pathways in the enclosure. Tyres, barrels, and other toys can be used to increase activity levels of the orangutans and provide novelty if they are given on a rotating basis. Hammocks provide a comfortable arboreal resting place for orangutans but can also be used to swing and wrestle on!

The Orangutan Project provides funds to purchase a wide range of enrichment for many care centres

Nesting material

Orangutans are given branches and leaves every day so they can make a sleeping nest. Orangutans sleep in comfortable leafy nests high in the canopy overnight in the wild. Young orangutans can take years to master nest building however it is a vital skill that they must develop before being considered able to live safely in the jungle. This is little Devi at our BORA rescue centre in East Kalimantan making a leafy nest in a hammock.

Little Devi is an excellent nest builder, a skill she learnt from her mother in the wild before being illegally captured

Jungle School

Ultimately, the best way to prepare an orangutan for release into the jungle is to provide them with Jungle School time. Here, young orangutans are taken into a safe area of the jungle and monitored closely by staff. The main aim of Jungle School is the development of forest survival skills. These include confident tree climbing, nest building and the ability to recognise and find edible food sources including fruits, leaves, bark, cambium and termites. Orangutans are not considered suitable for permanent release until they meet these criteria. Orangutans are monitored closely after release to ensure they are adapting to their new environment.

Cece hitching a ride to Jungle School (left) and learning to recognise and eat jungle fruits (right)

Thanks to the generous support of our donors, we provide much needed funding for enrichment at centres across Sumatra and Borneo.