Orangutan sent to start family in Nanjing
Print Edition
LU lu, a female orangutan at Shanghai Zoo, has been given a new home in Nanjing in neighboring Jiangsu Province, to start a family there.
Shanghai Zoo officials said they hope to have her hooked with a male orangutan so that they would breed and enlarge their population in China.
Lu Lu, who is 17 and was brought from the Philippines, has been in Shanghai for three years. Her keeper said she is “chubby” and likes playing hoop. She is not picky about food either.
Shanghai Zoo has five orangutans. The zoo previously tried to marry Lu Lu off to Qing Qing, a 9-year-old male orangutan, but it never worked, said Yuan Yaohua, deputy director of Shanghai Zoo.
“They did not ‘fall in love’ even though they lived together for over two years,” Yuan said.
Le Shen, the 16-year-old male orangutan at the Nanjing Hongshan Forest Zoo, has not been lucky with a mate either.
He was introduced to a partner from Hangzhou Wildlife Park in Zhejiang Province but the two did not click. They said “goodbye” to each other last year.
Le Shen was abandoned by his mother and is the first artificially bred orangutan in China. Nanjing Zoo posted a video of a “lonely” Le Shen online to find a companion for him.
Lu Lu left Shanghai in the morning. The Nanjing Hongshan Zoo sent a minibus, which was painted with pictures of the orangutans, to Shanghai.
It is the first orangutan breeding effort by the Shanghai Zoo, Yuan said.
“We brought bananas and durian, some favorite food of Lu Lu, wedding candies and even red dates that carry the auspicious meaning of early birth,” said Shen Zhijun, the director of the Nanjing zoo.
Shen said the zoo had expanded its orangutan enclosure to prepare for the arrival of Lu Lu.
They will be given space and some time to get familiar with each other. Shanghai Zoo officials will visit them after a week to evaluate them.
Native to Indonesia and Malaysia, the orangutans with typically reddish-brown hair, are a highly endangered species and are protected animals in China.
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