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Goin' ape over the landscape

http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/uniontrib/wed/metro/news_7m2orang.html

 By James Steinberg 
 STAFF WRITER 

 May 2, 2001 

 The scene at the San Diego Zoo's orangutan enclosure yesterday seemed
 familiar -- five apes examining a monolith, wondering what to do next.

 Only it wasn't an outtake from the movie classic "2001: A Space Odyssey," but
 a panel of zoo experts determined to undo what the hand of man had wrought.
 And so the orangutans spent the day abusing a 700-pound "tree trunk" made of
 steel rebar, metal lath and concrete.

 If the faux tree survives the test, it could be the model for the new 
climbing
 structure in the orangutan exhibit, scheduled for renovation next year.

 Indah, a 15-year-old female, was the first orangutan to enter the enclosure
 shorty after 9 a.m. yesterday, when the testing began.

 "She's spotted it," said Kim Livingstone, one of the keepers. "Now she's
 wondering what it is . . . she'll touch it . . . she's the destroyer . . . 
she uses her
 teeth."

 Indah was followed by Clyde, who, at 275 pounds, is the biggest of the 
Sumatra
 orangutans in the enclosure. With persistence, Clyde finally budged the 
stump,
 which was partially buried in the ground and chained to an adjacent pole.

 "It took four of us to do that, and Clyde did it with one hand," Livingstone 
said.

 The other orangutans -- Josephine, Satu and Karen -- quickly followed. They
 pushed, poked, hugged, nudged, climbed, sniffed, tasted and sat on the stump,
 and also on a smaller test piece a few feet away. They also excavated 
handfuls
 of dirt out of the ground and used it to fill the hollows in both artificial 
stumps.
 Then they withdrew to contemplate their next moves.

 "They'll be back," Livingstone said. "And they'll spend all day trying to 
destroy it
 or push it over."

 What the zoo is trying to do is "get away from the telephone-pole look,"
 Livingstone explained. The enclosure's current climbing structure is made of 
an
 assembly of poles and ropes, which have stood the test of time and 
orangutans.

 But the search is on for more natural-looking materials, and more than a
 half-dozen combinations of steel cable and chains covered with polymer have
 been placed in the enclosure for testing. They flunked, having been chewed,
 peeled and picked apart by the apes, said keeper Mike Bates as he displayed
 the failures.

 "Only one has withstood the test so far," he said, pointing to an 8-foot
 polymer-coated metal bar suspended horizontally half-way up the climbing
 structure.

 The orangutans within the last month have gained the upper hand on one of the
 vertical poles in the enclosure, which is starting to come apart at the top. 
And
 the danger, explained zoo spokeswoman Christina Simmons, "is that we don't
 know what they're going to do with the pieces."

 In the past, the apes have used bits and pieces of things for all sorts of 
mischief,
 from shattering the glass windows of their enclosure -- laminated, like a car
 windshield, so they still hold together -- to outright escape.

 The zoo's orangutan escapee par excellence, the late Ken Allen, became a
 local folk hero in the 1980s after three widely publicized breaks for 
freedom.

 He also was a prime example of orangutan intelligence and ingenuity, forcing
 the zoo to hire experienced rock climbers to find every finger-and toe-hold 
in
 the orangutan enclosure. The zoo then spent $40,000 to eliminate them.

 How was yesterday's entry in the orangutan-proof sweepstakes holding up?

 "We usually know within the first hour if they can destroy it," Bates said. 
"It's
 intact, it hasn't turned over, so we're happy so far."

From San Diego Union-Tribune, May 3