Monita has now joined the forest school students in group 4. Lately, she has been spending much of her time gathering and playing with other orangutans in the forest.
She can breathe a little easier without the fear of being bothered by Uru, a male orangutan in group 6 who used to cross into Monita's class. Uru is currently recovering from an injury inside the clinic complex. In Uru's absence, Monita has been more actively exploring the forest.
In forest school, there are many puddles from the nightly rainstorms. This becomes an exciting playground for all of the forest school students, including Monita. She can freely play with Paulinus and Kaladan on the forest floor, cooling themselves off with the refreshing water amid the heat of the day.
Monita is also not hesitant to enjoy and share food with her other friends. Orangutans, especially females, can form strong social bonds with other individuals. These bonds are built on a sense of mutual trust that is often demonstrated is through socialising and sharing food with other individuals.
When an orangutan feels threatened, they will make this known, and Monita is no exception. She shows that she feels uneasy whenever there is a new communication team member visiting class to take photos. The poor photographer will be become the target of Monita’s shooting practice, as she sprays them with water from the puddles and throw branches at them until they leave. In such situations, surrogate mothers usually try to redirect her attention by offering her lessons and fruits. If she finds them satisfactory, it doesn't take long for Monita to return to playing with others while enjoying the fruit treats. Once the fruits are finished, she will climb back up the tree to explore alongside the other orangutans in group 4.
Here at SunVit-D3 we would like to thank you all, as its your's and your children's efforts and the support of Meryl's gummies that allow us to help the fight in making sure Orangutans are kept in the wild just like our other Orangutan Meryl...
Back in November 2021, Meryl gratuated from forest school, and was moved to the Badak Besar Pre-release Island in the Salat Island Cluster, Central Kalimantan. Here, she can hone her survival skillls before finally being returned to the wild.
The forested islands are like orangutan universities, where they are unconfined, but monitored from a distance. Many of the orphans head into the interior of the island and so sightings can be rare and it's at this point that we cease the quarterly updates.
The next news we expect to hear about Meryl is that she's going to be released back to the wild.
When Meryl graduated, our adoption was switched to Monita and I hope you enjoy reading about her exploits above.
