Pairi Daiza welcomes new orangutan baby Mathaï

Pairi Daiza, the award-winning Belgian animal park, announced a new arrival on Tuesday. Sumatran orangutans Ujian and Sari have welcomed a new baby boy, the latest addition to the park’s growing orangutan family.

The birth of Mathaï, a little brother for Ujian and Sari’s first son Berani, is another success for the park - voted best zoo of Europe for three years in a row – and its orangutan conservancy project. Pairi Daiza now houses six of these critically endangered great apes.

Orangutans are facing mass extinction in the wild because of deforestation. Only 14.000 of these unique, intelligent animals remain alive today. Pairi Daiza offers a new future to these apes, with whom we share 97% of our human DNA.

The park does this by encouraging the orangutans to breed, therefore ensuring the continuance of the species, here in Belgium, but also by funding reforestation projects in the orangutans’ home country: Indonesia. Last year, Pairi Daiza Foundation provided funds for over 11,000 new trees to be planted on the island of Borneo.

It won’t be long before Mathaï has another baby to play with. Another adult orangutan couple at the park, Gempa and Sinta, are also expecting a baby.