POWELL – The Columbus Zoo and Aquarium is celebrating the first arrival of a Bornean orangutan in over 60 years, an important development due to the shrinking population of the apes in the wild and their naturally slow birth rate.
The first of this critically endangered species born at the zoo since 1962, the female orangutan was born on Nov. 28 to first-time mother, Khali, zoo officials said. The baby’s father is 30-year-old Sulango.
Found in the Malaysian and Indonesian portions of the island of Borneo, Bornean orangutans are the largest arboreal mammal.
“Orangutan” means “person of the forest” in the Indonesian and Malaysian languages, and the great apes share approximately 97% of the same DNA as humans.
The population of orangutans is estimated to be approximately 70,000 to 100,000 and over the past 20 years, their habitat has declined by more than 80 percent, mostly due to logging and the clearing of habitat in oil palm plantations.
Due to having the longest interbirth interval — approximately six to nine years — and infant dependency of any non-human mammal, orangutans do not tend to have many babies. A female may produce four or five offspring throughout their lifetime, making each birth particularly important, zoo officials said.