Bornean Orangutan Nenette celebrates 50 years

There are three female Bornean Orangutans at the Paris Zoo. One of them, Nénette, celebrates her 50th birthday this week. She has outlived the average lifespan of 35 years.

Born around 1969 in the forests of Borneo, Nénette arrived at the Parisian menagerie in 1972, at a time when the importation of the Bornean Orangutan was not yet prohibited. Nénette has a son called Tubo.

Nénette was the heroine in a 2010 documentary ‘Nénette’ by director Nicolas Philibert.

The other two females are Theodora, born at the Jersey Zoo in 1988 and her daughter Tamu born in 2004. They have been in the menagerie since 2007. Now there is also another youngster born this year in 2019.

They live in an outdoor enclosure of more than 500 square meters with a height of about 15 meters. The design of the enclosure was decided in an architectural competition launched in 2015.

MARTINA NICOLLSis an international aid and development consultant, and the authorof:- Similar But Different in the Animal Kingdom(2017), The Shortness of Life: A Mongolian Lament (2015), Liberia’s Deadest Ends (2012), Bardot’s Comet (2011), Kashmir on a Knife-Edge (2010) and The Sudan Curse (2009).

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