AMAZING MOTHER YAYANG AND HER SECOND BABY, LOUISE

Sum, our chef at Camp Lesik in the Kehje Sewen Forest, recently saw a female orangutan with a baby clinging to her belly not far from the camp. We believe it must have been none other than Yayang and her baby! When we released stories about Yayang’s newborn in July 2015, this beautiful baby had yet to be named. We needed time to assure the baby’s sex and it took us a couple of monitoring before we were finally able to determine that it is a baby girl. We now call her Louise!

For several weeks, we were not able to locate Yayang and Louise visually, nor detect Yayang’s signal. When we eventually found them, they both appeared in very good condition, healthy and active. We felt so relieved. A team that had just returned from a day patrol quickly set off to monitor the pair’s movements until Yayang built a nest for the night: We deliberately waited for them to settle in the nest, so we would know where to start monitoring the following day.

Nest-to-nest monitoring involves leaving camp before sunrise to locate an orangutan’s nest and then take notes on their movements every two minutes for the whole day, until the orangutan finally builds another nest to sleep for the night again. On this particular day, Handoko and Awal rose at 5 a.m. and went to the nest where Yayang and her baby had spent the night. There, they found Yayang with her clinging Louise, eating arthocarpus fruit from a nearby tree.

Louise appeared to be quite agile, at times letting go off her mother’s belly to reach out for nearby twigs. Yayang pulled Louise closer to her whenever she started to wander off, but this did not seem to stop Louise from trying. The baby seemed to be rather curious, and we even spotted her licking moss – perhaps having a taste-test? Her attentive mother quickly stopped her.

We monitored the pair for four days straight and observed them actively moving through the trees and consuming large volumes of forest fruits and shoots daily.

We were thrilled to see Louise is growing well, and felt privileged to be able to document the moments Yayang patiently protects and teaches her second offspring.

Yayang’s first baby girl, Sayang, is now independent and was recently seen spending time with Hamzah not far from Camp Lesik.

The team reflected happily on how lovingly Yayang had taught Sayang to live independently, and how it was now time for her to focus on Louise: May she, like her extraordinary mother, become another amazing figure in the beautiful Kehje Sewen Forest.