Video: Baby Orangutan Big Hit At KC Zoo

October 3rd, 2009 • Related • Filed Under

Check out video and photos at the source: http://www.kmbc.com/news/21185417/detail.html

October 2, 2009

KANSAS CITY, Mo. — She has a face only her mother didn’t love –- but everyone else is crazy about her.

Kalijon is the newest orangutan at the Kansas City Zoo, one of seven orangs in the exhibit.

KMBC’s Peggy Breit was able to get a close look at a baby orang that was born, bred and raised at the zoo.

The five-month-old Kalijon and her surrogate mother Jill are star attractions. Kali, as the keepers call her, is thriving after her own mother wouldn’t feed her.

The keepers took control of Kali’s welfare. “There’s been over 20 people that have helped raise her,” said Liz Harmon, the general curator at the zoo. “She had four shifts a day. Someone was carrying her or holding her 24 hours a day, every day, for the last five months.”

The keepers went to great lengths to treat Kali like any other orang baby, always wearing furry vests and holding her the proper way for her species. Harmon said, “We didn’t carry her like an infant, she was just on us and hanging onto the vest, so that she learned all the ways appropriate to an orangutan.”

That meant the keepers had to stay in close proximity to the zoo’s six other orangs. It was 33-year-old orang Jill who took to Kali right from the start. Several days ago, the staff decided to put Jill and Kali together full time.

It’s a match made in orangutan heaven –- one that puts Kali on the road to being part of her species’ survival, as a future mother of other orangutans.

Jill’s mothering skills were also evident in the rearing of her biological daughter Josie, who is now seven. Josie will be joining Jill and Kali in the same pen next week.

One reason visitors to the zoo like Jill and Kali so much is that they will come right up to the window to show off.

Kalijon weighed four pounds at birth, and now weighs eight and a half pounds.

Residents of Kansas City, Mo. can visit the zoo for free in October and November –- all you need is to bring a photo I.D. and proof of residency, like a utility bill.