Zoos are a conflicting place.
A part of you wants the animals to roam free in their natural habitat, but another part of you really hopes the tigers, lions and bears don’t rise up and escape while you’re doting over how cute they are from behind a thick sheet of protection glass.
Visitors at Perth Zoo on Sunday had a taste of the excitement/ fear when five-year-old orangutan Sungai wanted a glimpse of what life was like on the other side of the fence.
The little guy was playing around on some equipment when he lost his grip and fell onto the garden bed. We assume we thought since he’d made it this far, he might as well go the whole hog and climb the fence.
His mum Sekara wasn’t having any of it and also climbed out of the enclosed to retrieve him and return to the enclosure voluntarily.
“Sekara is an excellent mum and a bit of a helicopter parent, and the only way to get to him was to pop on to the visitor board. She retrieved him and returned to the enclosure on her own,” said Perth Zoo spokeswoman Danielle Henry.
“Keepers were calling to her, and she has a very good relationship with them.”
Visitors said it was a bit scary when Sekara jumped down, but the incident was over almost as soon as it began.
WATCH: Taronga Zoo’s cutest babies.
The woman behind the video, Jess McConnell, told WA Today the whole situation was pretty calm.
“The mum leapt down from the silver tower onto the banana tree and the zip line which reverberated the walkway. She then got up on the walkway railing before moving along and grabbing her baby then moving back on the railing.
“She seemed really calm, just confused on where to go next. Everyone around was really calm and giving her space as well. The whole incident was probably only 30-40 seconds before staff arrived.”
Ms McConnell said some people “were probably within arms’ reach at one point”.
The incident is being investigated, which makes sense seeing as it’s not the first time an orangutan has escaped an enclosure at Perth Zoo.
In 2015, another five-year-old Teliti also managed to jump out, but no one had expected the escape back then.
“Orangutans know to climb and swing but until now it was generally thought that they couldn’t jump. So that came as a real surprise to us,” Ms Henry said.
In 2012, a black-and-white lemur made its way from his enclosure to the reception area. Meanwhile the zoo has also seen the foiled escape attempts of a red-tailed black cockatoo, a sneaky quokka, a venomous snake and even two tortoises – who move at a whopping 0.26 km/h.
Oh how we wish we were there for the roaming quokka.
