Henry Vilas Zoo
On a morning in early June, inside the humid primate house of the Henry Vilas Zoo, zookeeper Mary Schmidt bounces on her feet inside the orangutan pen, which contains a giant playground made of wooden tree trunks, rope ladders and a tire swing. Though she appears to be alone, a small crowd of people watch her eagerly. Schmidt is wearing a bright orange vest that is covered in loose strips of fleece. When she faces the glass, visitors are able to see why she’s in there: Hanging onto her vest is a baby orangutan.
Appropriately, the crowd lets out an “Awwww!”
The baby’s name is Keju, which means “cheese” in Malay. She was born April 9 in the zoo. Schmidt is performing a training exercise to adapt her to a healthy lifestyle; it’s a behavior that would be expected of Keju’s mother Kawan, but there were complications after an otherwise smooth pregnancy.
“At some point, the baby was screaming, and Kawan decided that that was a very new, strange, and kind of scary experience for her, so she set the baby down and decided that she was not going to continue to care for it,” says deputy director Jeff Halter.
This type of rejection is common in first-time mothers like Kawan.
“We’re in the process of training both mother and baby to do a select group of behaviors that would help get them reunited,” Halter says. “The goal would be to put them together, and mom and baby would fall back in love with each other and everything would go great. The reality is it takes a lot of coordinated training of both mother and baby in order to have all of the behaviors they would need to have in order to be successfully reunited.”
Henry Vilas Zoo
The orange fleece vest gives baby Keju something to cling to as zoo staff step into a caregiver role.
For Keju, the training involves clinging to her mother’s chest — as orangutans do for the first year of their lives — and lying on the ground by herself without crying. Staff are training Kawan in nipple manipulation and getting used to Keju.
Interpreting the scene for the crowd is conservation education curator Erin Flynn. What they’re seeing is a “baby wellness check,” which is typically performed behind the scenes. However, the zookeepers perform the check publicly once a week.
Flynn says that Keju has “become really aware of things around her, so she’s actually tracking guests now.”
“It’s really important for the baby to be able to hang on and deal with changes in position just like Mom’s going to do when she’s with Mom,” Flynn says.
To get Keju used to clinging onto something, zookeepers keep the vest with her at all times. “Even when she’s sleeping, she’s holding onto that vest,” Flynn says.
Keju is not yet on display full-time for zoo-goers, but on Wednesdays at 10 a.m., visitors can watch her get her wellness checkup.
The birth of Keju and the compelling story of mother-child attachment issues are bringing attention locally to the global threats faced by orangutans and how zoos have become a major part of conservation efforts.
Orangutans are an endangered species. According to the International Union for Conservation of Nature’s Red List, the population of Bornean orangutans has declined 50% in the last 60 years, and the Sumatran orangutan population has declined 80% in the last 75 years.
Their native habitats in Borneo and Sumatra are being further destroyed every year through the logging industry and the pet trade.
“Unfortunately, they’ll go out and kill the mother to get the baby and put it in the pet trade,” Halter says.
The orangutans at the Henry Vilas Zoo are Bornean.
Another form of habitat loss is due to the palm oil industry. Orangutans depend on oil palm forests for their homes. Palm oil is found in a large number of products. “The problem is, it’s in everything,” says Flynn, “almost anything processed or that keeps.” Soaps and shampoos that produce suds usually include palm oil, too.
Zoo representatives want to let people know there are companies that have committed to using sustainably farmed palm oil. There are also apps and other sites that list products that use no, or sustainable, palm oil.
Henry Vilas Zoo director Ronda Schwetz is the field conservation guide for the Orangutan Species Survival Plan. “She brings zoo professionals [to Borneo], and they train people there in orangutan rehabilitation centers and, now, zoos,” Halter says.
Halter stresses that the zoo’s influence does not end at its gates. “Association of Zoos and Aquariums-accredited institutions are putting about $180 million a year toward conservation of species in the wild. So our scope is much larger than just an entertainment industry in your local city.”
