Zoo seeks mom for abandoned baby orangutan

TOLEDO — A baby orangutan at the Toledo Zoo is looking for a new home and a surrogate mother.

The male primate named Kecil was born on Jan. 11 weighing 3.4 pounds. The mother, Yasmin, left her baby in a holding area after giving birth and went back to hang with the rest of the orangutan group in the exhibit.

“We knew something was wrong right away,” Dr. Randi Meyerson, assistant director of animal programs, said. “The mothers are always holding them. They don’t put them down.”

Yasmin arrived at the Toledo Zoo last spring from Omaha’s Henry Doorly Zoo and Aquarium in Nebraska. Meyerson said Yasmin and the zoo’s male orangutan, Boomer, have rare genes, meaning they are valuable for keeping genetic diversity in the orangutan population.

Kecil has been hand-reared by staff members while they have tried for the past several months to reintroduce him to his mother, hoping she would bond with him.

Meyerson said that while Yasmin showed interest in Kecil and was trained to let the baby nurse from her while the staff fed her treats, she simply did not show any desire to rear her baby.

The zoo is working with the Orangutan Species Survival Plan and the Association of Zoos and Aquariums to place Kecil with a female with strong maternal instincts to care for him.

“The best thing for him is to be raised by another orangutan,” Meyerson said.

A new zoo has not yet been chosen.