BREAKING NEWS: YAYANG IS EXPECTING A BABY!

Last week we shared with you a story of Yayang’s daughter Sayang, who has started to live independently in Kehje Sewen Forest. This week we have even more exciting news from this pair; Sayang is about to have a baby sister or a brother!

Since their release back in December 2013, both Yayang and Sayang have shown excellent ability at adjusting to their new lives in the forest. They are very active and prefer to spend the majority of their time high up in the trees. Yayang is very good at finding forest foods, not only fruit, but also leaves, bark and termites. Sayang has learned a lot of foraging skills from her mother.

And this week, we received great news about Yayang from the Post-Release Monitoring (PRM) Team at Camp Lesik. Based on several observations, the team had suspected that Yayang may be pregnant. Early morning on April 22, 2015, the team collected a urine sample from Yayang and tested it. Sure enough two pink stripes appeared confirming her pregnancy. Unconvinced, the PRM team took another sample in the afternoon. The result was the same. The next day, on April 23, 2015, they repeated the test one more time, just to make sure. And yes! Yayang is indeed pregnant! 

Since then, the PRM team conducted a 6-day series of nest-to-nest observations on Yayang. She consumed plenty of forest fruits such as kedondong (Spondias dulcis), mangosteen, and ginger. Although she is now relatively less active than usual, in general she is very healthy. It is quite normal for a pregnant orangutan to be less active; she needs to conserve her energy.

While there have been three births in our Central Kalimantan’s reintroduction site (Bukit Batikap Conservation Forest), this is the first recorded pregnancy in Kehje Sewen Forest, so naturally we are all very excited and have high hopes for Yayang who is already an excellent mother to Sayang. We hope for a smooth pregnancy for Yayang and safe delivery of the first wild-born baby orangutan in Kehje Sewen Forest.