Kusasi, the orang-utan king, struggles for his throne By Carola Frentzen


dpa German Press Agency
Published: Tuesday December 19, 2006

By Carola Frentzen, Pangkalan Bun, Indonesia- Kusasi's got a secret. The massive 120-kilogram giant is staring out of his cage. His gaze is lost in time and space, self-contained and patient. Observers sense with awed certainty that they are looking at the most famous male orang-utan of all time.

The enormous great ape gained international stardom in the late 1990s when Hollywood actress Julia Roberts came to Kalimantan, the Indonesian part of Borneo.

In a memorable scene from her orang-utan documentary, In the Wild, she bravely approaches the red colossus, whispering his name "Kusasi... Kusasi..." At this he suddenly grabs her, tearing her down to the ground.

Only the prompt intervention of the rangers help her out of Kusasi's grip.

"As scared as I was, I knew his intentions were playful," she said later. "I am completely overwhelmed, I feel like I had the most intense encounter that a person could ever have," she added.

The BBC also dedicated a prize-winning film to Kusasi, From Orphan to King, in which his decades-long rise to power and his fights for the throne are documented.

Kusasi had a problematic childhood.

In 1976, when he was still a small baby, he was stolen by hunters who had shot dead his mother. Rescued by the police, the little orphan was taken to Camp Leakey, an orangutan sanctuary and research centre in the Tanjung Puting National Park in the middle of the rainforest. It was founded in the early 1970s by world famous primatologist, Dr Biruté Galdikas.

"Kusasi has always been different," Galdikas told Deutsche Presse- Agentur dpa in a recent interview.

"He was an orphan but he wasn't raised by humans. After he came to Camp Leakey in the late 70s he almost immediately vanished into the forest and came back only one and a half years later," she remembers.

"This is very unusual. At the time we all thought he was dead. But now we believe he must have followed a wild female orang-utan in the forest, that's how he survived," Galdikas says.

Back in the camp, Kusasi adopted the dominant female as his new "mother."

"She didn't want him but he insisted," Galdikas says. "That's how he became strong, by following a strong female."

The primatologist, who lived for decades in Kalimantan's primary rainforest to study wild orang-utans, smiles when asked to describe Kusasi.

"I would say he has a very determined personality."

Recently, a number of younger males have been trying to get into power. With "long calls" - a series of loud groans that can be heard up to one kilometre away - they are constantly trying to warn each other to stay away.

In often brutal battles, the great apes chase each other up the trees. In one such fight, Kusasi and his adversary, Win, fell - locked in combat - 10 metres to the ground. Kusasi broke his arm.

Another ambitious youngster, Tom, felt that now his chance had finally come. Handicapped and with just one healthy arm, Kusasi got badly beaten up.

"We found him on the forest floor, heavily breathing and with wounds all over his body," says Anang, who works as a tourist guide in the park.

"The veterinarians anaesthetized him and brought him to the clinic," he explains.

This particular clinic is the Orangutan Care Centre and Quarantine (OCCQ), which was set up by Galdikas in 1991 in the small village of Pangkalan Bun.

The huge primate is sitting in his cage and is playing with some branches, sporadically scratching his prominent cheek pads, which are the distinctive trait of dominant males. After months of treatment and care, Kusasi's wounds have healed and it seems that the colossus knows that soon the bars will open for him and that he will return to his beloved jungle.

What orang-utan experts don't know is how long Kusasi can survive in the forest before he gets attacked again. He is in his early 30s now and he has been the king - or rather, the dominant alpha male for more than a decade.

"We cannot take him to another area, because the forest around Camp Leakey is his home, it always has been. My guess is that in the future he will be much more cautious when he sees Tom," Galdikas explains.

Everyone who knows Kusasi wonders what his future will be like. He could live for another 20 or 30 years, but will he still be king?

Julia Roberts once stated: "He seems happy with only his thoughts for company, content with himself in a way that we will never truly know. It's Kusasi's secret. And he's not gonna tell it."

© 2006 dpa German Press Agency