Educational Talk GLNP

Educational talk for tourist National Park
Welcome to the Gunung Leuser National Park in Bukit Lawang!

I hope that until now you had a nice holiday.
You are about to enter the National Park. It is a very special and unique place. One of the reasons is
that it is one of the last places where the Sumatran orangutan lives.
But before you go to the feeding of the orangutan, I want to tell you more about the National Park and
the Sumatran orangutan.
The Gunung Leuser National Park is 1 million ha and straddles the borders of two provinces of
Nanggroe Aceh Darussalam and North Sumatra. The park was established in 1934 as a nature reserve.
Back than the park was 142 million ha. So a big difference with the 1 million ha now. Not until 1980
the nature reserve became a national park.
The national park of Gunung Leuser has been given the World Heritage status by UNESCO in 2004.
The Guning Leuser National Park is the core of many endangered and critically endangered species
remaining habitat including the Sumatran tiger, Sumatran rhinoceros, Sumatran elephant and Sumatran
orangutan.
The Leuser ecosystem is the only place on earth where these critically endangered species coexist and
loss of habitat will almost undoubtedly result in their extinction in the wild.
In the GLNP live 4000 different plant species, 350 bird species (36 of the 50 species known are
endemic to Sundaland), 194 species of reptiles and 129 (of the 250 on Sumatra) species of mammals.
Now I would like to talk to you about the Sumatran orangutan, who you might see during feeding. Do
you know this is very special. Because today approximately 6,600 Sumatran orangutan still remain.
The GLNP has wild orangutans and rehabilitated orangutans.
The orangutan is a great ape just like the gorilla, bonobo, chimpanzee and us humans. The orangutan
only lives on two islands Borneo and Sumatra (just two islands on the whole world)!
There are two species of orangutans: the borneo orangutan and the Sumatran orangutan. There are a
few differences between these two orangutan:
− The Sumatran orangutan has a more redish color and got longer hair
− Also the Sumatran orangutan stays more in the trees than his Borneo relative, because of more
natural enemies like the Sumatran tiger
The orangutan is an airboreal species, which means they live more in trees than on the ground. This is
quit unique for such a big animal. Is also means that an orangutan sleeps in the trees in a sleeping nest,
which he makes from leaves and branches, every day a new nest. You might see them as you walk up
to the feeding platform.
Orangutans live semi-solitair, it means most of their time they live alone. Although the female
orangutan live together with their offspring sometimes to 8 years, the adult male however live alone.
The reason why orangutans mainly live alone is because they are big fruit eters (60% of their dieet).
Because one tree cannot supply enough food for a whole group of orangutans, the orangutan go on
search of food by their own. If there is enough food, like during the fruit season, than orangutans can
also being found together.Orangutans are hard to spot. They can live up to a 30 meter tree in the dense
rainforest.
A female orangutan is mature when she is fiftheen years old. In here adult life she can only have three
to four baby's. There are two male strategies to get offspring. There are the dominant males who have
cheekflangs and the non-dominat male without the cheekflangs. The non-dominant males seem to rape
females more often. It is still not known why some males get cheekflangs and other males are not.
There is still a lot of research to be done.
The baby orangutan stays with his/her mother for six to nine years. This long period is needed to leran
about how to make a sleepingnest, which fruit and other food you can or cannot eat, how to climbe and
which tree is when in seasoning.
Orangutans can communicate to each other by more than fourty (40) calls. They can even leran to
wistle (like in Edelberg and Washington; video's on youtube)
There are two calls which I want to tell you about:

The first is the long call made by the dominant male. It is a territorial call.
The other call, and very important for you to know, is the kiss-squak. Which sounds like...
If you hear this, it means you are to close and the orangutan is feeling stressed. It is better than to move
on so the orangutan is being left in peace.
As I was saing in the beginning of this talk: there are only 6,600 Sumatran orangtans left and they are
critically endangered, due to logging, illegal pettrade..
That is why conservation is so important!
One of the solutions for conservation can be eco-tourism (if well managed). Because the local
community get a different way of income and benefit from the forest in a different way. Tourist have
the possibilitay to visit some extrodinary places and help together with the local community with
conservation.
You are about to enter the GLNP for the orangutan and eco-tourism in the future, it is very important to
follow the guidelines.
Guidelines:
1. Don't touch the orangutans: because they might crab you/ or you/ orangutan can also get sick
2. Don't feed the orangutans: because the orangutan can get sick/ crab you/ get less wild
3. Don't stand in between two orangutans: because they might crab you
4. Keep 7 to 10 meter distance between you and orangutan: because they might crab you/ or you/
orangutan can also get sick
5. Don't make loud noise in the forest: because you will scare all animals away/ orangutans might
not come
6. Don't litter the forest: GLNP is a very fragile ecosystem/ animals might get sick
7. You can stay only 1 hour maximum with an orangutan: because / or you/ orangutan can also get
sick/ orangutan gets stressed
FAQ
1. What does an orangutan eat?
2. What kind of sickness can orangutan get?
3. How old can an orangutan become?
4. How many baby's can an orangutan get at the same time?
5. Why are orangutans critically endangered?
6. How does a day in an orangutan life looks like?
7. How can you see the difference between male and female?
8. How much can an orangutan weigh?
9. When is a male sexual mature?
10. What is the difference between great ape and monkey?
11. What is the scientific name of an orangutan?
12. What does the name orang hutan means?
13. How much alike are orangutans and humans?
14. What is a species?
15. How many distance does an orangutan travel?
16. How do orangutans mate?
17. Do orangutans like chimpanzees use tools?
18. What can I do to help the (sumatran) orangutan?
19. Why can I get sick? And what kind of sickness can I get?
20. Why is an orangutan called an umbrella species?

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Educational talk for tourist National Park

Welcome to the Gunung Leuser National Park in Bukit Lawang!

There are two calls which I want to tell you about:

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