Adopt orangutan Gito

Gito’s Story

In 2015, a baby orangutan less than five months old was found dumped in a filthy cardboard box in the West Borneo sun. He had been kept as a pet and fed only condensed milk, leaving him severely malnourished and dehydrated. He was also suffering from mange, which had caused his hair to fall out and his skin to turn grey and flaky. He lay so still that our team feared he was already dead, until they found a pulse.

With round-the-clock care, Gito survived the night and slowly began to recover. At first he was so weak he couldn’t sit up, but with treatment and physiotherapy he grew stronger every day. Within two months he was climbing on his own and chewing everything in sight as his baby teeth came through.

In January 2016, Gito started Pre-School, where he met another orphan named Asoka. The two became inseparable, playing in the trees together and even using each other as pillows for their afternoon naps. By 2017 they had both moved up to Baby School, where Gito was always the first into the trees and quickly became an expert at finding fruit.

Today, Gito lives on Setrum Island as part of Forest School. He forages for his own food, builds his own nests from scratch and often explores far from the group. He still has a few skills to learn, but the tiny baby found in a cardboard box is well on his way back to the wild.