The Sepolok Orangutan Sanctuary is located in northern Sabah, a province of Malaysia on the island of Borneo. The center is a well-maintained and environmentally-friendly place for people to see these notoriously shy and endangered apes. The orangutans are viewed at feedings twice a day.
Visitors walk through the rainforest and watch the feeding on elevated wooden platforms so that they don’t have any impact on the ecosystem.
The orangutans move between trees and platforms in the feeding area on cables.
Two feeders bring buckets of bananas to the orangutans. The orangutans pay them no mind, and the feeders appear to be bored with their jobs.
During the rain orangutans prefer to stay in the dense jungle. However, despite the rain during our vistit several orangutans showed up for the feeding.
One of the orangutans was particularly mischievous
They ornagutans are not supposed to come into contact with the visitors
Each year one or two lone women are accosted on the trail and stripped of their clothes by a curious young orangutan
Although the orangutans mean no harm, it is usually very frightening (and embarrassing) for the victim. Handlers do their best to make sure orangutans do not become too accustomed to people
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About Matt Gibson
Matt Gibson is three-time Canadian expat now living in Salt Lake City, Utah, where he manages the blog for Flight Network, writes the About.com Snowboarding Guide, and writes about his exploits on his outdoors and adventure travel blog.
Excellent –up close and in the shot! The aesthetic moment! Where’s the naked girl lol and why not guys disrobed by the female young? haha
I use to do food styling in the 80′s working with 8×10 transparencies—the big shots too!
Only the tag lines could be more punchy…names for these guys, hang in there baby, whaddup from the wires — whatever –very cool!
Borneo! I want to go there and many other islands in western Indonesia soo badly. Photos are great man =)
I remember they had this orangutan reality TV show on Animal Planet that was hilarious. These photos remind me of those episodes.
Great. Glad you liked it! I wish I’d got a shot of an orangutan molesting a guest!
Thanks for the suggestions. I’ll totally take them into account in future essays!
Thanks for the compliment Maria. Borneo is definitely one of the best places I’ve been for outdoors and eco tourism. I totally recommend it.