I Love Monkeys! – Sepilok Orangutan Rehabilitation Center

I’m taking a break from the usual wedding photography post to let you in on a secret about me…I love monkeys! As a toddler and preschooler I carried a stuffy everywhere I went; his name was Monk. You guessed it – he was a monkey!

When we moved to Asia in 2010 I was fascinated by monkeys in the wild and everywhere we visited I wanted to see monkeys. (Little did I know, there were monkeys in the trees right next to my apartment building!) But, visiting an orangutan sanctuary was always top on my list. The orangutan and its fight for survival has always interested me. I wonder how we can be so careless when it comes to these majestic creatures. So, I wanted to examine closer the orangutan in its natural environment.

Before visiting Sepilok I did a lot of research to find a place where animals were free to roam in the wild and not caged. Extensive research led me to Sepilok Orangutan Rehabilitation Center in the Malaysian Sabah District of North Borneo. The center was founded in 1964 to rehabilitate orphaned orangutans. The site is 43 sq km of protected land at the edge of Kabili Sepilok Forest Reserve and is home 60 to 80 orangutans who live freely on the reserve.

I was so impressed with the facility that I didn’t want to leave. We arrived for the afternoon feeding and the orangutans were very active. After you pay the entrance fee you walk along a platform through the jungle. If you are lucky, an ape will come to greet you on the walkway. We were not so lucky, but we did see a few orangutans on the feeding platform. Once the handler put food on the platform, we could hear the trees rustling and then orangutans begin to swing in from the branches to feast. We watched the orangutans eat for quite some time. Then, slowly one orangutan began to come closer and closer. In fact, with his eyes locked on me the handler had to scare the ape back into the trees.

Once the orangutan retreated, the handler explained that he thought the animal just wanted a closer look. I didn’t realize at the time, but I carried on my chest in a very similar way that a mother ape would carry her baby. My son was just a baby and went on every trip I took. So, the orangutan was just coming in for a closer look at my son. I felt honored that day the orangutan took a personal interest when I was the one so desperate to meet this amazing primates up close and personal.

To get more information on Sepilok, here is a website to get started!