When Gordon met RoRo

On July 26th Jeremy took Gordon in to meet RoRo on his own. We had come to a stand off between the females so we thought that if RoRo could make friends with Gordon, Amy might then become more accepting. This plan worked much better. Gordon clung tightly to Jeremy and slowly became more relaxed as RoRo moved around the room. RoRo was also more relaxed as Amy was shut in the other room and could not threaten her. We carried on with this plan for a couple of days until we decided to give Amy another chance. Amy had not changed her mind however, and decided to carry on with her same intimidation tactics.

The big change occurred on the 1st of August when Jeremy took Gordon in on his own once again. RoRo confronted Gordon at first with snapping teeth and started grabbing at his hands. Gordon grabbed RoRo back and both of them suddenly realised that the other could be quite good company. We were all quite nervous that RoRo would be too rough with Gordon but he could not get enough of the new female. The two orangutans spent the next three hours wrestling wildly. Gordon found a comfortable spot, hanging upside down and RoRo lay beneath him pulling on his arms and slapping at his head. After three hours Gordon started looking tired and the floor was covered in his long orange hair. We called it a day, pleased that Gordon had finally made contact with RoRo, even if his beautiful coat was a bit worse for wear.

The next day we let both Amy and Gordon in and just like the day before, Gordon sprinted to RoRo to begin the wrestling games. Amy was stunned and watched in disgust as her son played with the new female. She soon tired of the show and returned to her room to consider what had just happened. Over the next few days Amy stopped threat-ening RoRo and appeared to accept that the new female was here to stay. By August 5th all three spent the night together and while Amy and RoRo are not the best of friends, they seem to be accept each other’s presence now.