At thePairi Daizazoo in Belgium , a family of three Borneo orang has forged an unusual friendship with their fieldmates , a mathematical group of Asiatic modest - taloned otter . Keepers made the decisiveness to put these two coinage in a shared enclosure with hopes that they would keep each other entertained and , judge by the photographs , they were not incorrect .
Orangutan think of “ man of the forest ” in Malay , which is exactly where theseexceptionally intelligentprimates live in the wild , with population inBorneoand Sumatra . They partake 97 per centum of their DNA with humans , which explains why they share many of the same needs as people when it comes to involution and enrichment . They ’re so similar in fact , some have even been documented makinghuman - like soundswith their own"faux language"which researchers have attempted to translate . To account for this , the Pairi Diaza zoo in Belgium has put together a ample and diverse " enrichment " program for their resident orangutang , of which they have five , which concentrate on around their keepers engaging the animal in head game , teaser , and physical challenges .
To bolster this enrichment , the decision was made to keep their home of three Pongo pygmaeus , Ujian , Sari and babe Berani , who arrived at the zoological garden in 2017 from the German zoo of Heidelberg , in isolation , in a shared enclosure with a radical of otters . While these two animals do n’t coexist in the uncivilised today it ’s possible that extant populations of Pongo pygmaeus found in Southeast Asia and South China could have overlapped with the metal money ' habitat .
By pose the two different highly societal species together they can each benefit from coherent interaction and play with their neighbors . The Pairi Daiza zoo facilitated this by housing their otters in the river that flows through the orangutan enclosure . In an email to IFLScience the zoological garden explained , “ The otters really enjoy getting out of the piddle on the orangutan island to go and play with their big , furred friends . Especially child Berani and daddy Ujian [ who ] have developed a very special hamper with their neighbors . It take a shit life story more fun and interesting for both animal mintage , which makes it a very successful experimentation . ”
The Borneo orangutans are one of three species of orangutan in the region and are exceedingly threatened in the wild due to annihilative deforestation preponderantly from harvesting palm oil . In the retiring 60 years the wild universe has decline by 60 percent . The Pairi Daiza zoo is involved in a undertaking to restore a part of the Borneo forest for the wild population , and thanks to Ujian , Berani , and Sari they have raised enough money to plant 11,000 new trees in Borneo . you may discover out more about the project to harness deforestationhere .
