At the Ouwehands Dierenpark Rhenen Zoo, staff had an unusual problem. For most of their lives, the orangutans in the zoo lived in a standard, old-style cage. They didn’t have a lot of room to climb around, swing from tree to tree, or do any of the other ape-like things that orangutans would do in the wild. As such, when the apes moved into a massive, 32-foot-tall enclosure with lots of swingable trees, they didn’t know what to do. So, the zoo has hired an Olympic gymnast to teach the great apes to swing through the trees again.
Staff at Ouwehands Dierenpark Rhenen have turned to Epke Zonderland, a veteran of the Beijing Olympics’ mens’ gymnastics team. The hope is that Zonderland’s swinging ways will inspire the apes to resume their active lifestyle and overcome the years of trained laziness. Zonderland merely hopes he can get in and out of the orangutan habitat without being mauled to death or karate-kicked by angry chimps who love being couch potatoes.
Tags: lazy orangutan, Olympic gymnast teaches orangutan to swing from trees, gymnast hired to teach orangutan to swing, Epke Zonderland, Ouwehands Dierenpark Rhenen, unusual animals, the Netherlands
