Holland continues to surprise and delight us every day. She continues to develop her skills, knowledge, and relationships with others. At the moment Holland has two close orangutan friends, Benjamine and Clara, but she has wildly different relationships with them. Holland’s orangutan friend Benjamine has moved to a different sleeping enclosure, but the two friends don’t let that keep them apart. On daily forest school releases the pair regularly convene together and look around the forest for food, mostly for ants. They even help each other out – say if ants are biting Benjamine, Holland will lean over and pick them off for her. Orangutans have been known to understand other individual’s feelings, especially when the other is hurt. Holland is a great sharer, always keen to involve those around her. One of her favourite things to share is sloppy mud. When Holland sits next to a muddy pool, she takes great big handfuls of mud and smears them on her caregiver, Ibu Ateng’s legs!  When Holland is with Clara however, they will chase one another through the trees and playfully pull, bite, wrestle, and roll around on the ground together. They butt heads and wrestle to the point of exhaustion! Holland really lets out her wild side in this instance. She has established different relationships with her friends and depending on her mood can choose what sort of day she wants to have.

As per usual when Holland is released for forest school, she immediately clambers across the tyre bridge and disappears into the bushes. She invariably reappears and rides high above the shrub line into the tree tops. For Holland there are no limits, and she regularly journeys deep into the forest and ventures near the other orangutan camps. She has committed to memory the places for foraging her favourite fruits and leaves. These places include areas where there are local trees such as red pelawan, the leaves of which local people boil for medicinal purposes.

Holland has begun breaking branches, indicating that she is instinctively beginning to learn nest building. Orangutans aren’t known as engineers for nothing. She mostly does this on the ground. We hope she will take this to the next step and transfer the skill to the trees, given time and practice. We look forward to informing you of Holland’s progress soon.

Click here to download Holland’s August 2023 Foster Update