Fotos

Sepilok is an orang utans rehabilitation center. This center, through a long and expensive period, looks after and trains orphaned or 'domesticated' orang utans how to really live like the wild ones.

If you have had watched 'Madagascar' you know what I mean. It is not easy for a 'domesticated' animal to be living in the wild again.

In this rehab, they give 'boring' food to these orang utans. The reason is, to get them to search for better foods in the virgin forest where the rehab is. But until they get so bored stiff with bananas, you could still see them swinging to the feeding area, on time at 3pm.

And as if the getting-to-be-bored-food is not enough by the day, swinging and coming through to it against the gauntlet of harassing and profiteering macaques isn't exactly welcoming either.

The Sepilok Orang Utan Rehab Centre is not a sanctuary. It is really a rehab, where while the orang utans are looked after and 'methodically' feed, they are naturally 'induced' to live like wild orang utans. Until such time the handlers think they are fit enough and release into the wilds.

It is also a no wonder the centre doesn't bother to 'remove' the well groomed macaques, ganging up around the feeding area. They serve incidentally a natural purpose to make the orang utans, animusly aggressive in getting its food.

The feeding platform is about 100m in the rainforest from the main building. You will be walking on elevated boardwalk and the scene in the photo, is taken from a open stage about 10m from the raised feeding platform.

While you are here, you will have macaques scurrying around you waiting for the handlers to come in with bananas for the orang utans, which swing in just around 3pm.

To get a better shot of the orang utans feeding on the platform, suggested ISO is 400 or 800, depending on which is the less grain of your camera. Anything less it will be blurry. For lens,its a wide to medium zoom lens. As wild animals are not actually good at keeping still for a long time, you need a high shutter speed to freeze them especially in this low light atmosphere. Furthermore,when was the last time you shoot a kid with ADD?!