MONKEY World is going ape for a new infant orang-utan which has joined the rescue centre. 

Sibu Junior, born on July 31, joined the Wool-based attraction from Dublin Zoo earlier this week. 

The 12-week-old male orang-utan was not fed by its mother despite the zoo’s best efforts to show the pregnant orang-utan how to breastfeed youngsters. 

Workers at the zoo said the mother “clearly” loved its child but did not have the skills to position it so it could feed. 

(Image: Monkey World)

The decision was then made to remove Sibu Junior to be hand reared, to save the youngster. 

Monkey World is home to the European specialist orang-utan crèche for orphaned and rejected infants, which aims to break cycle of abandonment and help female orang-utans rear their own young. 

Orang-utans have the longest childhood of any primate apart from humans, and as they are semi-solitary in the wild, they depend on these early years to learn everything from their mother. 

It appears when young orang-utans are unable to be mother reared, they do not learn the skills to enable them to look after their own children. 

For young males like Sibu Junior, growing up in the orang-utan Nursery Crèche gives them the skills to live with women and children when they become fully mature males. 

Dr Alison Cronin, director of Monkey World, travelled to Dublin to meet the beautiful, but vulnerable infant, and bring it back to Monkey World.  

(Image: Monkey World)

Sibu Junior was accompanied to the Dorset sanctuary by a member of its care team from Dublin, to keep the transition as stress free as possible. 

Alison said: “It is really too bad that Sibu’s mother did not feed him, it was what everyone had hoped for.  

“In the end the team at Dublin Zoo saved the baby’s life and cared for him around the clock while necessary health checks and paperwork were completed for the transfer of the infant to Monkey World. 

“It is so important that orphan orang-utans grow up with others of their own kind.  

She added: “At present Sibu is just over three kilograms and is taking 90mls of formula at a time, throughout the day and night.  

“He is not ready to join the others just yet but it won’t be long before he is able to sit up and move around on his own.”