| May 11, 2006, Toronto, Ontario: At last our beautiful orangutan baby boy, born early on January 18th, has a name! The baby will be known as "Budi" which means "The Wise One" in the Indonesian language. Zoo officials, however, are cool if "Budi', pronounced "boo-dee", gradually morphs into "Buddy".
The contest to name this special baby, which ran from April 13th to April 30th, generated over 46,000 responses, the most in the Zoo's history of naming contests! Name suggestions were made through TVOKids and the Toronto Zoo. A panel of judges composed of Zoo Animal Care staff and kids whittled the thousands of entries down to five, Santoso ("Peaceful" in Indonesian), Berani ("Brave" in Indonesian), Kembali ("You're Welcome" in Indonesian), Kecil ("Tiny" in Indonesian) and Budi, which were posted on the TVOKids website from May 2nd to May 8th so that kids could vote for their favourite name. Of Puppe's five offspring, only Budi and Jahe, (female, 9 years old) are still at the Toronto Zoo. Big Sister Jahe babysits her little brother and generally helps care for him, giving Mom Puppe time to relax. The gestation period of an orangutan is between 225 and 275 days. Infants weigh 1.1 to 1.5 kg at birth. Young orangutans stay with their mothers for 5 to 6 years and are sexually mature between 6 to 8 years. In addition to participating in the Orangutan Species Survival Plan with other North American zoos, the Toronto Zoo supports orangutan conservation through the Toronto Zoo Endangered Species Fund. Drop by the IndoMalaya Pavilion to visit Budi, his Mom Puppe, Big Sister Jahe and other members of our orangutan family. And bring your camera - Budi is too cute to miss capturing on film! |