Dublin Zoo’s Orangutan Mujur Fails Test in Breastfeeding
At the end of July, a 19-year-old orangutan named Mujur gave birth to a healthy baby boy in the Dublin Zoo. Since then – and for months preceding the birth – the zoo has been trying to teach Mujur how to be a mother.
Mujur had given birth before, in 2019 and 2022 but, as the zoo put it in a statement released this week, “Unfortunately, as can happen in the wild, Mujur did not exhibit the necessary maternal qualities and both infants passed away not long after birth.”
To avoid that fate for the new little guy, the zoo gave Mujur a crash course in mothering, in particular the crucial task of breastfeeding. A baby orangutan is completely dependent on mom for the first three years of its life.
The zoo tapped into the postpartum community of Dublin and environs to enlist the services of thirty lactating (human) volunteers. These women took turns nursing their babies in front of Mujur, who eventually was able to approximate the standard pose of a mammalian mom. But it wasn’t quite enough.
“She was doing fantastic,” zookeeper Anthony McClure tells the Irish Times. “She was holding the baby and looking after the baby but the most important thing we needed was for the baby to latch on and feed. But unfortunately it didn’t happen. We gave it every opportunity.”
The zoo has decided to bottle-feed the baby orang, hand-rearing him for a few weeks until he is big enough to be relocated to Monkey World, a 65-acre sanctuary in Dorset. The facility is designated by the Orangutan European breeding program to raise infants who have been rejected by their mother.
“The whole team has already fallen hopelessly in love with him, and it will be difficult to say goodbye,” the zoo writes, “however we are confident that he is being sent to the best possible place for him to continue to develop and thrive.”
Photo credit: Patrick Bolger / Dublin Zoo
