Auckland gets its own star ape attraction

A big ape might have hogged the limelight in Wellington yesterday but the real thing is about to take up a starring role at Auckland Zoo.

Baby Bornean orang-utan Madju is just over a month old and slowly stepping into the public eye by spending longer periods in an outdoor enclosure with mother Melur.

The mother-baby bond in great apes, which share 97 per cent of their genetic make-up with humans, was "breathtakingly human-like", said zoo curator Maria Finnigan.

"She looks at him adoringly, like any proud and doting mother."

But the zoo took no chances on motherhood being too much for Melur, whose first baby died soon after birth in 2002. The 17-year-old attended "antenatal classes" which included a video of female orang-utans with their babies and a visit from a woman who was breastfeeding a baby.

While the birth of Madju was something to celebrate, the outlook for the family of endangered great apes was bleak, Ms Finnigan said.

"The fact that almost 90 per cent of both Bornean and Sumatran orang-utan habitat has been decimated by illegal logging and the growth of palm oil plantations is anything but positive," she said.

"It's an appalling situation.

"But with the right intentions and actions we don't have to see this magnificent species go extinct in our lifetime."

Orang-utans are found only on the part-Malaysian island of Borneo and on the Indonesian island of Sumatra. Malaysia and Indonesia are the world's largest exporters of palm oil.

Used in everything from margarine to beauty products, palm oil is predicted to become the world's most traded edible oil by 2012.

The destruction of forest to make way for palm plantations has pushed the Sumatran orang-utan to the brink of extinction. With only about 7000 left, conservationists fear it could be gone from the wild in 20 years.

Bornean orang-utans number between 12,000 and 20,000 and are listed as endangered by the World Conservation Union.

Fully grown, Madju is likely to weigh around 90kg and reach a height of around 1.4m (4 ft).

Great ape

* Orang-utans bend tree branches to make nest-like platforms to sleep on.
* They are the largest tree-living mammal in the world.
* In dry periods, they chew leaves into a sponge and use it to soak up water from tree cavities.

From the Herald.