Karta had spent years with her companion Pusung before
he died last month from a respiratory infection.
A conservation expert says it is likely that an orangutan that escaped from its enclosure at the Adelaide Zoo on Sunday was pining for its mate.
The 27-year-old Sumatran orangutan Karta had spent years with her companion Pusung before he died last month from a respiratory infection.
Yesterday, on one of the zoo's busiest days of the year, she used a stick to short-circuit electric wires and climbed on top of the brick fence surrounding her enclosure.
The zoo was evacuated as a precaution, and Karta is now in her night enclosure until zoo staff decide how to change her area to prevent her escaping again.
Zoos SA Conservation Psychologist Dr Carla Litchfield says it is likely that Karta was looking for Pusung, as she is still grieving.
"We know that orangutans are very good at problem solving. They're very smart and if they have the right incentive, as we saw yesterday, it's possible they can escape," Dr Litchfield told PM.
"Just like other animals, even horses and dogs can sense when electricity is on or off and if they're smart enough to use a tool they could short-circuit it."
Dr Litchfield says the orangutan's escape posed no danger to the public.
"Karta, whilst she's difficult, she's not an aggressive individual and for her this enclosure is her home. The keepers feed her - this is where she gets food and shelter.
"She didn't try to escape or run away from this general area, she just got out and it's very possible she was looking for Pusung because to her he's missing and perhaps he's around here somewhere.
"That's possibly what was going through her head but of course we can't see into their heads and we can't ask them to tell us."
Dr Litchfield says Karta has attempted to break free in the past.
"She has tested the fence before and used objects to test it, so she would certainly know that it's an electric fence and she would have tested it and perhaps even short-circuited it in the past," she said.
"But unless they have the motivation to leave, which we can only guess is because Pusung's not here, we don't really know how long she's been planning it or why it happened."
Emotionally responsive
Dr Litchfield says it is likely the orangutan is experiencing a range of different emotions.
"We already know that all of the great apes grieve and they certainly grieve for their babies if they die," she said.
"We also know for orangutans that if the keeper comes back after a long absence of even 20 or 30 years, an orangutan will greet them very warmly and recognise them, even though they haven't seen them for decades.
"So they're just like us in that they remember individuals and they certainly remember for a long period of time.
"Great apes can get depressed just like humans. And like humans, depression can be that you just become very quiet, so again it's the keepers who know them best and know their personalities and if an individual is suddenly different in some way or too quite or not eating their food, then those could be the warnings that there's something going on."
Dr Litchfield says while it is difficult to monitor and manage the happiness of orangutans, the zoo's role is to reproduce a natural habitat.
"We don't really even understand our own happiness and how to make ourselves happy," she said.
"But in terms of providing them with the best environment, well, we try and give them things that make it as close to the wild, the good wild, as possible because of course the wild is disappearing and they're suffering in the wild.
"You give them as much naturalistic stuff in there like plants and you give them plenty of activities to stimulate their brains and you hide food around so that they have to search for food and use their bodies to find it."
Zoo management is meeting to discuss options for keeping Karta safely enclosed.
"Do you put up more electric fences, a bigger one? Do you make sure there's nothing that's big enough so that you can climb out?" Dr Litchfield said.
"But you know it's a lovely bushy enclosure and for them it's great if they have shrubbery to hide behind and to make it more like the wild, so it's always this balancing act of giving them as close to the wild as possible but then still maintaining them safely in an enclosure.
"The thing is that she posed no threat to anyone that was here and the zoo followed the proper procedure that exists if any great ape escapes and so I wouldn't expect her to cause any trouble like that.""
No comments:
Post a Comment