Napri the loner
Orangutans, much like their human relatives, each have their own unique personalities. At our Nyaru Menteng Forest School in Central Kalimantan, we have class clowns, social butterflies, and we have quiet orangutans, who prefer to spend time alone. One of the latter is Napri. He has a rather gentle character and avoids confrontation.
Napri the loner was rescued from a village in Katingan Regency, Central Kalimantan, on 21 September 2015. At the time, he was estimated to be only one month old and was very small, weighing only 1.5 kilograms. After completing a period of quarantine, Napri joined the Nursery Group. In this group of infants, he appeared happy to meet, interact and play with other orangutans around his age. He grew quite close to the babysitters, who are caring for our baby orangutans in the absence of their biological mothers. It was during his time in this group that Napri, unfortunately, started to experience some digestive problems.
Napri is honing his survival skills.Now, Napri is five years old and has progressed to Forest School Group 4. We are happy to report that he has grown into a healthy, independent, and solitary young orangutan. When his friends are playing, Napri is usually somewhere else, minding his own business or focused on working on his climbing, nest-building, and foraging skills. He will occasionally join his group to eat or drink, but his independent nature and quickly developing skills have put him ahead of his peers.
In the wild, orangutans live a semi-solitary life. Once they reach maturity, they spend most of their time alone, or, in the case of females, with their immature offspring. Flanged adult male orangutans are the most solitary. So, being able to spend time alone is a necessary survival skill.
Based on the many positive reports from his surrogate mothers, we believe that Napri shows incredible promise and, once released, will be thriving in the forest like a true wild orangutan.
