Philadelphia Zoo has a new baby Sumatran orangutan

Captive breeding is a carefully planned process, coordinated with the Species Survival Plan of the Association of Zoos and Aquariums, the industry’s accrediting agency.

“We don’t even consider breeding our animals unless we know there’s going to be a happy, healthy place for that animal to live out its entire life, which for an orangutan can be 50 or 60 years,” said Michael Stern, the zoo’s curator of primates.

“We also look at the genetics of the animal to make sure we maintain a genetically healthy population under human care,” he said. “To do this, we are thinking ahead, 100 years from now.”

This is not the first time the Philadelphia Zoo has promoted the birth of a Sumatran orangutan. Fifteen years ago, Jambi’s parents gave birth to a female, who has since moved to a zoo in Seattle and will soon give birth, making Jambi an uncle.

Sumatran orangutans are solitary creatures. Unlike other primates, such as gorillas and chimpanzees, which form complex social groups, orangutans tend to live alone, but this only happens after a long childhood with their mothers to learn the ins and outs of survival.

“Orangutan babies have the longest childhood of any species except humans. They spend six to eight years with their mother before they leave and find their own territory,” Stern says. “Mother and child are the only stable social group that exists in an orangutan society.”

For his debut Wednesday, Jambi, named for a major city on Indonesia’s Sumatra island, spent most of the time hidden from view under his mother’s right arm as she foraged for food festively laid out by zoo staff, including fiber-rich vegetables and a fruit-flavored ice block shaped like a cake.

The orangutan enclosure is shared with other primates who occupy the space on a rotating schedule. Jambi and Tua will be taken out for public walks at predetermined times, which will be announced in advance on the zoo’s social media channels.

Due to its slow development, Jambi will remain in infant and juvenile stages for a longer period than most other animals, allowing the zoo to offer visitors a glimpse of a baby animal for years to come.