Zoo's 'very manipulative' orangutan loved by many
By Treena Shapiro
Advertiser Staff Writer
Bruce Asato • The Honolulu Advertiser
For an orangutan who was rejected by a member of his species, Rusti has made a lot of friends among the human population.
Rusti, the 23-year-old orangutan who has been at Honolulu Zoo for six years, is the center of debate between zookeepers who disagree on where he should live.
But Rusti has attracted such a diverse group of admirers that their conflicting efforts to look out for his interests have stymied efforts to move him into a new home.
By now, the 23-year-old primate should have been getting used to his new home at Kualoa Ranch, where his owners brag that he would have a view of Mokoli'i islet (also known as Chinaman's Hat) and someday, two or three trees of his very own — a big deal for an orangutan who has spent his entire life on concrete floors.
Instead, Tuesday will mark the six-year anniversary of his arrival at the Honolulu Zoo where he remains in his cage.
Dedicated volunteers and zookeepers visit him regularly to hand-feed him fruit, massage his feet, shampoo and brush his hair and give him holistic therapy called healing touch.
Rusti knows how to keep them coming back.
"He'll sit in there and gets real romantic. He'll hold our hands and he'll kiss us," jokes one of his zookeepers, Malia Davis. "I don't think he knows he's an orangutan. He's been mostly hand-raised. Every time they put him in with an orangutan, he got beat up, so he prefers to be around people."
Bruce Asato • The Honolulu Advertiser
Over the years, Rusti has become a favorite at the zoo, where he is often found hunkered down in the corner of his exhibit, gazing out with soulful eyes that compel zoo visitors to note his sad appearance.
Honolulu zookeeper Tyris Perreira keeps Rusti company as he peers out from his habitat.
His keepers say he sometimes sits in the corner to brood, or think, or to communicate displeasure with someone. "He's a very manipulative animal," Davis said.
She said he can recognize visitors and will often spend a few minutes sulking in the corner to punish favorite visitors who haven't dropped by in a while.
Then again, it would be hard to read the exact same expression as sorrow on a recent morning as he was being pampered by his two zookeepers while he accepted chunks of watermelon a volunteer passed him through a hole in his cage.
"That face, only his mother could love," Davis pointed out when asked why people so frequently remarked that Rusti appeared despondent. "He has that kind of face that looks sad and pathetic all the time."
Rusti, however, has had a rough life.
He was born in captivity, and his mother rejected him while he was still an infant. Successive attempts to reintroduce him to his family resulted in beatings and bitings, so the orangutan was raised by a series of human foster parents before ending up in a small indoor cage at the private Scotch Plains Zoo in New Jersey.
"The people did care for him, but he didn't have the best exhibit," Davis said.
When the zoo closed in 1997, the Orangutan Foundation International rescued him, shipping him to Honolulu to spend a few months while an orangutan sanctuary was built in Hilo.
• Born: 1980, Woodland Park Zoo, Seattle. • Family: Father, Bornean orangutan, raised for five years with gorillas. Mother, Sumatran orangutan. Siblings, Belawan and Hernan. • Background: Rusti spent his early childhood being cared for by human foster parents. In the late 1980s he was sent to the private Scotch Plains Zoo in New Jersey. In 1997, he was brought to Honolulu Zoo, where he remains today. • Interests: Bird watching. He also enjoys having birds sit on his shoulders and has been spotted tugging lightly on a bird's tail.
However, political and financial problems plagued the project, which was eventually abandoned in February 2002.
Rusti
The next publicized plan was to send him to the Center for Orangutan and Chimpanzee Conservation in Wauchula, Fla. However, four months ago, OFI announced that it would build Rusti a new enclosure at Kualoa Ranch instead.
Dr. Birute Mary Galdikas, president of OFI, which owns Rusti, was thrilled by the opportunity to keep the orangutan in Hawai'i, which she said was an ideal climate for him.
But the move to Kualoa hit a snag in April because the new cage was built without the proper permits.
John Morgan, president of Kualoa Ranch, said the foundation will not have to pay any rent, but it is responsible for paying for the construction and maintenance of the temporary cage and permanent sanctuary, as well as care for the animal.
"But we'll be working cooperatively together to make sure he's well taken care of," he said.
Morgan said housing Rusti at the ranch will "be a nice addition to our youth education program," but while the public will have some access to Rusti, he will not be on exhibit. "We're not a zoo," he said.
He said he is puzzled by the efforts of animal rights activists who are determined to have Rusti sent to Florida.
The activists are lobbying the city to reject the building permit for his cage, as well as fighting a Board of Agriculture decision to issue a permit to move the orangutan.
Linda Vannatta, a zookeeper who has filed a lawsuit against the board because they failed to consider e-mailed testimony before deciding to issue the permit in February, worries that Rusti will be exposed to human diseases if kept at Kualoa Ranch.
After the board considered the e-mailed testimony and reaffirmed their decision Thursday, Vannatta still holds out hope that a judge will void the action because of a violation of the open meeting law.
While she worries that a trip to Florida will be stressful for Rusti, she pointed out that he survived the trip from California without incident.
"After visiting Kualoa Ranch, I am convinced that the environment there will not be conducive to Rusti's mental or physical well-being. In the long run, I believe the risk of the plane ride will be outweighed by the advantages of providing him a life in a proper sanctuary with others of his kind and a staff that is well-trained and focused on animal care," she said.
However, Rusti's zookeeper Tyris Perreira said she and Davis will go out to Kualoa to check on Rusti and one of the volunteers who works regularly with Rusti will be out there full-time.
"I think they're making him suffer," Perreira said about the opponents of the transfer. "They're prolonging this. They want him here all the time? I don't think so. They don't see what he's going to have."
Reach Treena Shapiro at tshapiro@honoluluadvertiser.com or 525-8070.
