Rancher cites Rusti's 'kind soul' in $100K gift
By Robbie Dingeman
Advertiser Staff Writer
Rusti — Honolulu's favorite orangutan — met his mystery donor for the first time yesterday, pressing his hairy paw through his chain-link cage and posing patiently for the cameras as he moved a step closer to a much bigger place to swing.
Richard Ambo • The Honolulu Advertiser
Big Island rancher Erin Keck presented a $100,000 check from the Hawai'i-based nonprofit Chelsey Foundation at the Honolulu Zoo yesterday, with Rusti in attendance. The large orange ape watched Keck as she gently stroked his paw through the fence.
Erin Keck of the Chelsey Foundation strokes the hand of Rusti, the orangutan who will get a new home thanks to a $100,000 contribution from the foundation.
City managing director Ben Lee said the donation from Keck's foundation will allow the city to begin building a new enclosure for Rusti at the zoo by November.
Keck said the foundation made the donation — the largest since its creation in 1997 — because she was touched by his story. "I think he represents what's special in the world," she said. "He's a kind soul."
Rusti is owned by the Los Angeles-based Orangutan Foundation International, which earlier pledged $200,000 to the project. Foundation founder Birute Galdikas said the new home at the zoo will be 20 times bigger than Rusti's current cage and will feature "a tree to call his own."
Galdikas said the large banyan tree will make Rusti's new enclosure a special place to live, with green grass, a chance to smell the ocean breeze and gaze up at the blue sky.
"It will be the closest thing to the wild that we can give him in the United States," Galdikas said. Her foundation also has committed to paying for Rusti's food and a caretaker for him.
Rusti arrived in Honolulu in 1997 after the foundation helped remove him from what they considered unacceptable conditions at a New Jersey Zoo. At the time, he was expected to stay at the zoo, in a cage, only about six months, but various plans for a larger, permanent home have fallen through, including proposals to move him to the Big Island and to Kualoa Ranch on the windward side of O'ahu.
Lee said the city will provide basic utilities for the new enclosure — water, sewer, electricity — as well as paved walkways and may be able to save some money by having city staff handle landscaping and parts of the project. City Enterprise Services Director Barry Fukunaga estimated the additional costs at about $100,000.
Richard Ambo • The Honolulu Advertiser
Fukunaga said he expects groundbreaking will be in the next two months at the area where the old elephant encounters were held, with construction completed in four or five months. He expects work to go quickly because Orangutan Foundation International will hire the contractor rather than the city. "We can cut through some of the red tape," he said.
Rusti's new enclosure will be 20 times larger than the cage at the Honolulu Zoo, where he has lived since 1997. He met Keck, a Big Island rancher, when she presented the check at the zoo yesterday.
Lee said the city is working with the architect now to try to come up with a creative design for Rusti's new shelter.
Rusti seemed happy to receive a special lei, strung with mango, pineapple, carrots, celery, palm fronds and red cabbage. The 24-year-old orangutan chewed off the fruit first, then started on the vegetables.
Last month, the City Council approved a $300,000 gift for Rusti — $200,000 from the Orangutan Foundation International and the other $100,000 from the Chelsey Foundation, identified publicly yesterday for the first time.
Keck, who has long blond hair and a calm and friendly air, kept Rusti's interest during the brief ceremony. Zookeepers admit he prefers women to men, responding more positively to their longer hair and softer voices.
Keck said the donation is part of her commitment to helping animals. She said she has rescued other animals in need of help and now cares for 13 horses and three dogs at her Big Island ranch in Waiki'i, where she has made her home for most of the past 12 years.
Fukunaga said Rusti's new home is designed for two, which leaves open the chance that a female could join him later. But officials cautioned against too much romanticism surrounding a possible pairing, saying that most male orangutans prefer a solitary existence in the wild, spending just enough time with females to mate.
Reach Robbie Dingeman at rdingeman@honoluluadvertiser.com or 535-2429.
