The Zoo is a great place to take mom any day of the year, but this Mother’s Day the Zoo will also celebrate M.O.M – Missing Orangutan Mother’s Day. With the help of volunteers our event coordinator Sarah Borrego will host an information table at the Orangutan Exhibit on Sunday, May 8 from 10am to 1pm. During this time Zoo Keepers will be available to answer questions and at 12:30pm our orangutans will be given special treats called enrichment. There will also be information on orangutans and handouts including MOM tatoos, word search and call out cards.

This year’s M.O.M. banner below features orphaned orangutans Gaia (left) and Brenda (right). They are lovingly cared for by the Sumatran Orangutan Conservation Programme (SOCP) at their quarantine center near Medan, Indonesia. Like hundreds of other orangutans, Gaia and Brenda were taken from their mothers as babies and experienced much trauma before being rescued by SOCP. Brenda arrived with a broken arm that required surgery to repair. Together with other babies, Gaia and Brenda are part of the Infant Group and are beginning to thrive. They attend “forest school” where they learn to climb trees, build sleeping nests, and forage for food. All this is completed under the supervision of their human caregivers, since the babies are Missing Orangutan Mothers. When not in the forest, the babies are together in their Infant House enclosure. Spending nights and parts of the day in a cage is the reality for rescued orangutans. The goal is always to get them out of cages and back to the rainforest where they belong. This is the work YOU can help support!

Our Sumatran orangutan family at the Zoo are ambassadors for orangutan conservation in Indonesia on the islands of Sumatra and Borneo. You can learn more about Ibu, Butch and Khalessi here.

The Zoo encourages you to support M.O.M by visiting the Redapes.org website. One of the greatest threats to orangutans and other animals in Southeast Asia is the palm oil industry. We all need to become informed consumers and avoid products with palm oil or switch to products with sustainable palm oil. Unfortunately palm oil is not regulated in the US to help save endangered species like orangtans and as consumers we need to take the necessary step of becoming better informed. One of the best ways to do so is to download the free palm oil app.