2 weeks Ago By BBC
A baby orangutan has arrived at a specialist monkey sanctuary after his mother was unable to feed him. Sibu Junior was born on 31 July at Dublin Zoo but staff had to give him round-the-clock care. It meant Sibu Junior became vulnerable and staff said they made the "difficult decision" to find specialist help.
He has now been welcomed into the European creche at ape rescue centre Monkey World in Dorset, which specialises in caring for orphaned or vulnerable infants. Four other young orangutans born in zoos in Hungary and Germany currently live in the creche. They will eventually meet Sibu Junior and they will all be reared by creche foster mother, Oshine, a Bornean orangutan who was rescued from the illegal pet trade in South Africa in 2010.
Dublin Zoo said: "Despite his mother clearly loving him, she did not possess the skills to position him so he could feed, so the difficult decision was taken to remove Sibu Junior to be hand reared, to save the youngster." Dr Alison Cronin, director of Monkey World, said: "It is so important that orangutans grow up with others of their own kind. "Monkey World specialises in the care of these very vulnerable infants and has specialist facilities to aid in their development and integration into the nursery creche.
" Sibu Junior, who is now 12 weeks old, currently weighs 3kg (6.6lb) and requires formula day and night. Dr Cronin continued: "He is not ready to join the others just yet, but it won't be long before he is able to sit up and move around on his own.
"Then he can start spending days in the nursery and get to know some of the others that live there. "Sibu's future in the nursery creche is a long one as he will stay with us, growing up with other orangutans for the next 10 years, before having an adult group of his own someday.".
