Kobe can be described as the “Queen of the Forest”. On daily release Kobe spends much of her time exploring the forest instead of playing in the infant playground. She really makes the forest her own. She swings easily from tree to tree. In fact, sometimes Kobe slides down a tree trunk as though it was a firefighter’s pole! When in the forest she often stops to forage and eat leaves from a surprisingly large number of plants. Kobe knows the forest surrounding the infant playground so well that she can find muddy pools of water even when there has not been rain for days. Kobe will sit and splash about in her mud ‘throne’ pushing away other young orangutans who come to join her in play. While Kobe has many friends in her sleeping enclosure and often plays with them, Kobe prefers to be a one-woman show on daily release.
Kobe rarely plays in the infant playground. The exceptional times of playground play occur when most of the other infant orangutans are off in the forest and she has the place mostly to herself. If there is a burlap sack available to play “hide and seek” with, Kobe will sit and place it over her head and disappear into her own imaginary world. Yet once her fellow orangutan orphans return to the playground and start a tug of war for the sack, Kobe easily relinquishes it and takes off into the forest again—somersaulting all the way!
Kobe has a sweet, pleasant, distinctive face that is easy to recognise no matter how high she climbs into the trees! With a gentle nature and lush orange hair, she is a lovely, good-natured, and easy-going orangutan. Often when Kobe is in the forest on daily release, she sits high in the canopy, looking as though she is surveying the chaos below, curious but glad not to be a part of it.
Kobe is independent, knows what she wants, and displays a zest for life that is a joy to behold. We can hardly wait for the day that Kobe is old enough to return to her home, one of the great forests of Borneo.