Look who’s turning 50!
Merah, the matriarch of the Saint Louis Zoo’s troop of Sumatran orangutans, is having a 50th birthday celebration, and everyone is invited!
The female Sumatran orangutan turned 50 on May 13, but the zoo is hosting a party from 9:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m., on Saturday, June 1. Highlights of the day include birthday-themed enrichment activities, as well as “meet a keeper” and learn about animals and conservation.
Joining Merah (MEER-ah) at the Fragile Forest for the party will be her daughters, Rubih (ROO-bee) and Ginger, and Ginger’s father Cinta, (CHIN-tah), as well as the zoo’s great ape care staff.
Merah is the mother of five, grandmother of two and great-grandmother of one. She has had three babies at the Saint Louis Zoo, including 4-year-old Ginger and 14-year-old Rubih, who live with her, and Sugriwa, a son, who was born in 1995, and now lives at the Philadelphia Zoo.
Merah was born on May 13, 1969 at a zoo in the Netherlands. She became a first-time mother in 1982 to Badut, now deceased. Merah came to St. Louis in 1992 from the Miami Metro Zoo, where, in 1984, she became a mother to Talu, now deceased.
When Merah gave birth to Ginger in 2014 at the age of 45, she became the oldest Sumatran orangutan in the Association of Zoos and Aquariums Orangutan Species Survival Plan to give birth and rear her offspring.
Merah is an excellent mother, according to the great ape care staff. Orangutan infants have a lot to learn from their mothers and are dependent upon them for up to six to eight years. Rubih has had the opportunity to observe Merah raise Ginger, so hopefully one day, Rubih will be an exceptional mother, as well.
Along with Sumatran orangutans, two other orangutan species – Bornean and Tapanuli – are classified as critically endangered due to an alarming rate of habitat loss. There are fewer than 125,000 orangutans remaining in the wild, and they could be extinct within a decade. A global demand for palm oil has resulted in widespread deforestation and subsequent drastic declines in the number of orangutans who survive in the wild.
