Orangutan: Mothers show monkey mother how to breastfeed | Life & Knowledge
There have been some incredibly emotional moments in Dublin Zoo over the past few months. Orangutan Mujur became a mother just two weeks ago. She has already lost two baby monkeys in the past because she didn't really know how to care for her offspring.
► This time it was going to be different! She got support from female zoo visitors who wanted to show her how to breastfeed properly. Months in advance, the zoo had called on women to show Mujur how to breastfeed.
Mujur was very interested
To this end, 30 new mothers regularly sat in front of the enclosure window to breastfeed their babies. “Mujur was extremely interested and even imitated the mothers' movements,” the zoo said in a statement. She was also shown videos of other breastfeeding primates to prepare her as best as possible.
The hope: As soon as the monkey is there, the 19-year-old Orangutan lady so you know what to do.
Mujur's male offspring has no name yet
But then the sad news: It didn’t work.
“Mujur took care of the baby after the birth, but was unable to position it correctly for breastfeeding,” says the zoo with.
► Normally, in such cases, no intervention is made and nature is allowed to take its course, but: Orangutans are threatened with extinction. The zoo therefore decided to separate the mother and the baby monkey to raise it with a bottle. Now the hairy offspring are cared for around the clock by zoo staff.
The young animals are extremely dependent on their mother for the first three years of their lives. They cling to her, receive mother's milk and are carried around by her.
It worked in the USA
It is not the first time that monkey mothers have had to learn from women how Breastfeeding works. At the Metro Richmond Zoo in the US state of Virginia, zoo employee Whitlee Turner showed the Orangutan Zoeas she breastfeeds her son Caleb.
Immediately after Zoe's baby was born, Turner sat down at the cage and demonstrated step by step how to do it. The amazing thing was: Less than 24 hours later, the female monkey imitated her and fed her baby for the first time.