Bornean Orangutan Research Paper

A few weeks ago, I spent a lovely Monday afternoon observing two different primates at the Santa Ana Zoo. I got to the zoo around two in the afternoon, and to my surprise, the zoo was decently crowded. The Santa Ana Zoo is smaller in comparison to other zoos like the Los Angeles Zoo, but still had a decent amount of animals there. Covering a small 20 acres of land, I came across two primates that fit perfectly for the purposes of this course project. I chose to observe an endangered ape, the white-handed gibbon, and an endangered new world monkey, the golden-headed lion tamarin.

Primates are one of the most interesting mammals on earth, not only because of their complex social structures, but because they hold so many similar characteristics to humans. Primates are often cited as our closest living relatives and on two separate occasions I observed four separate species of primates at the San Diego Zoo that can justify their use of their physical characteristics and behaviors that may be similar as well as different to the other primates and ours.

Chimpanzees are great apes that are the closest living relatives to humans (Larsen, 2014). These primates have been studied and observed intently for decades, and there are many theories that explain why they are the way they are. Chimpanzees learn the necessary skills of survival through social and cultural contexts and pass these traits along to their offspring. In researching these smart and interesting primates I have understood the social and cultural roles chimpanzees have that are necessary for survival. The mother- infant bond is crucial to the development of young chimpanzees and these females are known for teaching their young social roles and behavior, communication

Orangutans have long lifespans (30-40 years) with long interbirth intervals and low reproductive rates. In fact, females have eight year intervals between births and will only give birth to one or two offspring in her lifetime. The reason why this poses a problem is that when an enormous amount of orangutans are killed, it’s tough to recover because they are not producing large numbers of children nor do they have short interbirth intervals. Consequently, there will be extremely high death rates and very few births (UNEP, 2007). Their population numbers will continue to fall because they won’t be able to compensate for the great loss. A study completed by Michael Bruford and Benoit Goossens at Cardiff University showed that in 1900, there were approximately 315,000 orangutans in Indonesia. Currently, there are about 60,000 orangutans living in the forests of Indonesia, which is a massive population decline (Kaye, 2016).When orangutans are driven out of their habitat due to deforestation and illegal logging it forces them to roam a great distance in search of food. Orangutans are solitary creatures, spending the majority of their time in the trees. Their diet relies mainly on fruit, with a preference for fruit with soft pulp. They also eat buds, flowers, leaves, soil tree bark, and some insects. Due to their largely frugivorous diet, they have to monitor the seasonal availability of resources. When fruit is abundant, they will increase their food intake and store the food as fat for energy. This enables them to eat low quality food items in habitats where fruit may be scarce (Delgado & Van Schaik, 2000). The dipterocarp forests of Borneo and Sumatra have trees that fruit simultaneously, so there is an abundance of fruit once every 2 to 5 years which are known as the “mast years”. During the other years there is not as much fruit, so orangutans have to maintain large home ranges in

I primarily observed three orangutans, one male, one female, and one juvenile, of Sumatran and Bornean descent, scientifically known as Pongo abelli and Pongo pygmaeus, respectively, and to a lesser extent, two gibbons known as siamangs, or Symphalangus syndactylus. These primates share the same enclosure in the San Diego Zoo in California. I observed the orangutans from 12:58 P.M. to 2:00 P.M. CST on September 19th. During this time frame, the three orangutans mainly stayed high up in their man-made structures, consisting of multiple metal bars covered with nets, ropes, and hammocks. The female and juvenile orangutans stayed above ground from 12:58 P.M. to 1:31 P.M., and again from 1:48 P.M. until 2:00 P.M, approximately 45 minutes. During

Primate conservation has long been a topic of debate, reliant most heavily on the struggle to provide the necessary resources to combat the declining rate of population growth among various species. Orangutans in particular, both Sumatran and Bornean, have experienced a rapid drop in their free-living populations. With an estimate of only 27,000 left in the wild, questions have been raised over what selective pressures are impacting the steady decline of these animals existence. While hunting and poaching have been identified as contributing factors, habitat loss primarily takes center stage in their demise. Conservation efforts have been made and continue to be somewhat successful, however, challenges and set backs continue to threaten

The Bornean Orangutan lives on the island of Borneo, a part of Malaysia and an Indonesian province. The Sumatran Orangutan lives on the island of Sumatra in Indonesia. They can be found in the heavily canopied rain forests, low elevation forests, and sometimes in grasslands . Due to their surroundings, the diet of the Orangutan consists of over 500 plant species, with fruits being the primary staple food but they also eat leaves, bark, insects and flowers. The results of this diet mean that they are one of the main distributors of seeds throughout the forest, creating the cycle of growth to maintain their food source. In their environments orangutans are not known to form large communities, but small groups with specific

They are very fast and can be able to run within short distances using the most minimal time. It takes less than 10 seconds to run within a distance of approximately 100 meters. While the animals move around they try to monitor the environment as quadrupedally and monitoring of the environment can be able to take as much as up to ten minutes in any case they have doubts of where they are, this alerts them of any predators. Consortship is a situation where the two animals would stay close to each other and monitor the movement and environment of each other. This is done as long as the animals are out in an environment that is not seen as being friendly. The patas can be seen to be less vocal and they move around in silence, they make certain noise only once when they have seen a predator. The noise or the sound takes just a few seconds as long as the danger is taken away

Orangutans (Figure 3) are our first cousins since they share 97 percent of our genetic material. Contrary to other apes, orangutans are semi solitary which is unique in its social organization (3). Adult males which are the most solitary, and they associate with only their current, former, and potential consorts. For the semi-solitary orangutans, the only playmate is its mother. Even female adults are more social than male ones, rarely they groom, touch, hold hands, chase, or fight. On rare occasions, female adults may groom; however, it lasts only few seconds. Sometimes, female adults meet and travel with one another to express the close relationship. The long call by a male orangutan expresses an alert to others about his presence. Usually, other orangutans only react if the call is close by or aggressive towards them. Male orangutan can use vocalization to express that he is angry and frustrated, and that call signals a threat to another male (3). Female orangutans also produce vocalization when they get upset by the presence of another male.

The study of primates has been a common field of study for a long time. The studies are carried out for different reasons but the common reason is trying to understand human beings better. Studies have revealed that the behavior of primates is similar to that of human beings on different aspects. Human beings and primates have a history of being related based on the evolution stories. The earliest human beings are believed to have been apes and evolved from there.

One thing I like about the orangutans is their social behavior. For instance, when the adult females finished eating, they would get together and hug and show affection towards each other. Also, the infant and the adult females were always curious to see humans and birds; they would try to interact with them. In addition, I really enjoyed watching one of the female orangutans treat the infant as if it was her own child. In contrast to the female orangutans, the male orangutan was solitary. He spent

Primates have always been a fascination of author Robert Sapolsky who wrote an autobiography about a trip he took to Kenya as a research undergraduate student. Part 1 is named the adolescent years and talks about when Sapolsky first joined the baboon trip to Kenya. It introduces his research assignment, how stress affected a primates health, and the baboons he recorded his data from. Soloman was the alpha male and Leah was the alpha female. Devorah was the most eligible female in the group. Ruth, a lower-ranking baboon, who had difficulty finding a mate settled down with Joshua, another lower-ranking baboon. They soon had Obadiah. Uriah a large baboon who transferred into the group in the spring persisted a challenge against Soloman until he

My observation of the orangutan habitat was on a sunny and hot day with the average temperature being between 65-70F. The Enclosure for the orangutans was a grassy and dirt area that was approximately 35ft+ in width and about 75ft+ in length with a long glass barrier for observation. The habitat featured three 15ft tall fake trees which were fashioned after a tree but bare of leaves. The trees were

The Jane Goodall Institute website provides information about the projects regarding the protection of chimpanzees and other primates. Based on the institute’s initiative to protect the primates by providing education to the community, supporting sanctuaries, and working with law enforcements (website JGI). Furthermore, the information provided on the program Roots & Shoots points out a guide to those interested in helping the wild life, and provides aid to elaborate new plans to help the primates. The first step is to acknowledge the problem, in this case is finding a way to protect the chimpanzees. Second, to elaborate a pan, the JGI conservation program uses technology such as cloud computing and remote sensing to provide up to date information on the

For the Orangutan in the zoo each enclosure they had a total of three orangutan in each pen, most were all adults, except one which was a young juvenile. As well as it is appear to be that none of these orangutan are a part of a subgroup because some, if not all isolated themselves from others. In which is very common according to Lang C. (2005), "Adult males and independent adolescents of both sexes range alone while adult females range with their dependent and weaned offspring" (Primate Factsheet pongo, para. 1). So the zoo's orangutan act very similar to the wild ones. Next the differences is how are they physically built between in each others. For the orangutan, if they are standing they are about 5 feet tall, however including arm and leg span due to how they are built to climb and swing to places their body size will be seven feet tall. Another difference was that they had no tail due to they ancestors evolution to who they are now, which remove the chance of having the ability to have a prehensile tail in the process. The last physically difference is their hands. They have all fingers and thumbs, but they don't use their thumbs to grab; they use mostly their fingers to grasp objects. Which make them who they are