Adopt orangutan Gatot

Gatot’s Story

In August 2016, a man collecting firewood heard crying in the forest. He found a tiny baby orangutan, alone and abandoned, and kept him as a pet for almost two months, feeding him condensed milk.

When our team found out, they travelled to his village to collect him. At two months old, Gatot was the youngest orangutan our team in Indonesia had ever rescued. He had no teeth at all, so our carers started him on mashed banana to help build his strength until he could eat solid food.

Baby orangutans stay with their mothers for years, so Gatot was almost certainly an orphan. When he first joined Baby School, he was the most frightened of all the babies. He cried a great deal and clung to anyone nearby, until a young female orangutan named Jamila began hugging him to comfort him. He soon found a close friend in Bonya, another orphan, and the two bonded quickly.

The nervous little baby who arrived all those years ago is now one of our most confident orangutans. After graduating from Baby School, Gatot has moved to our forest islands, the final stage before release. Here he spends his days high in the trees, finding his own food and building nests, with far less help from his carers. It’s exactly the independence he’ll need for the day he finally returns to the wild.