The Official Houston Zoo Blog

It is 2 AM and I awaken with a start from a fitful sleep. A tiny, perfect infant orangutan is squirming on my chest peeping sounds of imminent discontent. I struggle to my feet with difficulty from the low cot, blankets falling as I flail. Bleary-eyed, I stagger to the refrigerator as baby Aurora begins to squall, and I rush to warm her formula. I pat the baby and readjust her position to soothe her, and she settles into warm contentedness again once she has had her fill of the bottle.

Aurora by Nathalie Jolicoeur

Half a world away, on the islands of Borneo and Sumatra, many caregivers are charged with very much the same set of duties. Babies of every age are pouring into rescue and rehabilitation stations in various states of malnutrition and distress after being ripped from their deceased mothers. The inclination to shield oneself from this information is strong, but we need to know. As we all happily buy our Easter candy or hair conditioner, more palm oil is being planted. Palm oil plantations now blanket most of what was once pristine rain forest, and the change has happened so rapidly that wildlife cannot adapt to it. Adult males, lone adolescents and mother orangutans with babies clinging to them are being killed routinely by plantation workers and tree-fellers. This has resulted in a huge population of orphans at rehabilitation centers, at least the ones who are lucky enough to be rescued before they perish or are imprisoned as pets. Read more about the palm oil crisis here.

Caregivers in Borneo have many more challenges than the ones we face here in the zoo. Here we have staff support, the assurance that formula will not run out, and two possible maternal figures – Kelly or Cheyenne orangutan – to try to introduce the baby to later. There, a constant worry is ever-present: they have hundreds of babies to care for. Will they have enough caregivers to raise all those babies? Will they run out of formula, or cereal, or fruit for the older ones? And, sadly, there are no adult females to act as surrogate mothers for any of them. These babies are all peer-raised: trundled to their forest playground together in wheelbarrows, stuck together into small cages at night where they clutch one another as they would their mother (after they are old enough to be removed from their human overnight caregivers.) They never really grow up with any mothering figure to learn from; all of their important life lessons have to come from humans. The 3-D IMAX film “Born to be Wild” playing at the Museum of Natural Science highlights the struggle faced by caregivers in Borneo.

As I admire our new baby: her miniature ears, her soft orange hair, the perfection of her fingers and toes, my mind wanders. The sadness I feel that our Kelly is not taking care of her mirrors my sorrow for all those mothers in Borneo who have lost their lives for no good reason. And, I grieve for all those wild-born babies, who have lost their only link to what is real in their forest home: their mother.

Kelly and baby Solaris

On May 8th, we will celebrate Mother’s Day at the zoo with a table of information in front of the orangutan exhibit that will give everyone some ideas of how to help. Come to the zoo and look for the “Missing Orangutan Mothers” table that Sunday. Remember we can all help. We can choose what we buy: the “power of the purse” is important; consumers themselves make decisions every day simply with their purchases. You help by coming to the zoo because funds from the front gate go directly to our conservation department, where money translates into action on the ground around the world, including Borneo, where we support the Kinabatangan Orangutan Conservation Project (KOCP).

And, when you see a baby with its mother, any baby, be thankful.

 Aurora by Tammy Buhrmester