Active with a healthy appetite and an appreciation of a balanced diet in the forest. Those are some of the behavioural traits applicable to the released orangutan Robert, who the monitoring team had the opportunity to observe last week in East Kalimantan.
From South to North and back again.
Robert the orangutan makes use of the entire release site that is the Kehje Sewen forest in East Kalimantan.
The monitoring team had not seen the 11-year-old male since the beginning of the year. They were therefore pleasantly surprised when they picked up a strong signal from the orangutan’s radio transmitter last week. This time, the signal came from the southern part of the forest.
Finally, they had the opportunity to catch up with and observe Robert’s behaviour and life in the rainforest.
Eager explorer
Robert was released to the southern part of Kehje Sewen in April 2017. He was very active and began moving around a lot from the very beginning – and in just a few weeks, he had travelled 25 km.
Robert is known to be an eager explorer, and his ability to travel such great distances does not surprise the monitoring team. Moreover, orangutans his age are known to travel between 1 and 2 km a day.
A balanced diet and healthy appetite
When the monitoring team located him on this day in June 2019, the 11-year-old Robert was nesting for the night in the treetops.
Since it had gotten quite late, the team simply recorded Robert’s coordinates in order to find and observe him the next day.
Around 8 AM on the following day, the team returned to Robert who was still sleeping soundly. He awoke shortly after their arrival, yawned a few times, and moved to the nearest tree to find a hearty breakfast. He stayed there for a long time, eating the fruits within his reach with a good appetite.
Throughout the day, the monitoring team was able to conclude that Robert is still in good health, and that he is still active and moves around quite a lot. During their observation, Robert helped himself to large amounts of fruit, and the released orangutan flaunted his excellent foraging skills. He climbed down to the forest floor several times to find and eat termites and drink water from the river.
The monitoring team followed Robert the entire day until he stopped to nest for the night around 6 PM.
