Do you think this orangutan had an actual reason for doing this, or was he just being an asshole?

When you are a prisoner your whole life for no reason, it is only natural to develop animosity towards your captors.

Sorry from the title I thought this was a political question.

I recalled that orangutans get along fairly well with humans. I found this article It describes(statement 9) orangutans and gorillas as being “gentle giants”, in contrast to chimpanzees. Could it be that the orangutan was upset that your daughter seemed to have lost interest?

Do you think this orangutan had an actual reason for doing this, or was he just being an asshole? Really I thought it was a honest about question about Trump, just look at the question again . All animals especially predators attack when your back is turned. That’s why if you put fake eyes on the backs of cattle that the predators never attack. I do think that the orangutan was being a dick. Must have been waiting for his chance.

Well, not exactly a primate: I was at an octopus exhibit in an aquarium, looking at one octopuses who was in a cylindrical tank in the middle of the room. There was some pale coral in the center of the tank, and he had tucked himself into a space in the middle of all of it, matching his skin to the off-whites palette. One eye looked outward.

Everyone got bored and moved away from him, so I came up to the tank and looked. I wondered about what he was thinking, what it was like for him to see all these people come up and stare. It certainly looked like he was staring right back. I also thought that the way he was tucked in his space was interesting—many of his suction cups were facing out, touching nothing, and I liked the way the shadows fell, so I brought my phone out to take a quick picture.

I started to pull the phone away, and he began to unfurl himself, climb out of his alcove and billow toward the glass. I pulled my phone up again and got several very blurry shots of his coming to the edge of the tank—I wasn’t really looking at the camera at that point. He lifted himself to my eye level and trained a squinted eye directly at me (or perhaps my phone, which was black and white striped with a large black circle in the center, and perhaps something about it caught his attention).

He just stared at me for several seconds, and I stared back at him. Then people passing by began to notice. A group of children was trying to look over my head to see him, so I gave them my front-and-center position and watched them stand there with mouths agape.

@Soubresaut Cool story. Octopus are super smart . Just type in Octopus escape on YouTube . Maybe it knew that you where taking its picture and wanted to be included?

@RedDeerGuy1 thanks for the videos! :) I like to think it knew something like that

I’d have to go all along with your grand daughters reaction, and chalk it up as a stupid monkey. Just be glad the glass window was there. If its any consolation to the young lady, I’ll bet he has one hell of a knot on his head.

We’d have to ask the orangutan, and be able to understand and confirm a reply, assuming it gave us one.

I can imagine various reasons:

* Orangutans are not really happy being locked in zoos.
* Orangutans taken from the wild may remember what happened when they were taken.
* Some zookeepers may have been bad to them.
* Some zoo visitors make have been bad to them.
* Orangutan body language differs from human body language. IIRC, orangutans can take staring as a threat…
* Orangutans may have some sense of how humans have been treating orangutans, for example that “orangutans could be extinct in less than 50 http://www.orangutan.com/threats-to-orangutans/ due to humans destroying their habitat, palm oil plantations, hunting, the pet trade, etc.
* Orangutans may not appreciate idyllic human mothers wanting to entertain their happy twins without thinking about the plight or orangutans at all, and may somehow think humans need a wake-up call that maybe there’s something to think about besides “cut monkey”.

@NomoreY_A Yeah, they considered putting no barriers between the orangs and the people, or even the lions and the people, but after a great deal of discussion decided that might not be a wise thing. What do you mean she’s lucky?!

I’m sure that is not the first time he’s slammed the glass! from my daughter’s description I think it was a full body slam, not a head slam. And he did it on purpose. I imagine he was just laughing. Asshole! Hope he had fun! If I was him it would have made me laugh!

@Zaku here is a recent discussion on zoos. I agree with what you said, except for the part that they could be somehow aware of how we’ve treated orangutans in general. How could they possibly know, beyond what has happened to them, or those in their immediate tribe? But we can take it to the other question, please.

I just remembered hearing at one time that primates in general do not like being stared at. It is generally interpreted as aggressive behavior. One time I visited a zoo and spent too long staring at a proboscis monkey (they are quite odd looking). The monkey appeared upset by my behavior..

We don’t like being stared at either. I can imagine them getting freaked out by people staring day in and day out.
Funny how he didn’t react until she looked away. Or…maybe he took it as his chance to express his displeasure, although she wasn’t the only one looking at him.
Or, maybe he’s just an asshole and thought it was funny!

Do you have information on the history of that one orangutan?

I don’t know why the orangutan did what it did. My impression of orangutans is that they tend to be very smart and that they can be pretty empathic and often bored, emotional and/or moody in zoos. Imagining I were an orangutan in a zoo, I can see harboring some upset and feeling powerless and wanting to take a chance to cause some upset in humans, but why that child at that time, I really don’t know.

Animal is animal. There’s no way for any of us to pinpoint what was his true motive for doing that just by your description. The orangutan didn’t do anything that is perceived as danger to visitors nor did he go against the rules that have been enforced in the zoo.

So… someone fell off the chair due to such thing? Lol my, that’s funny. I once had a dream that I’m being mounted by silverback gorilla, that powerful, furry, dominating, unforgiving creature just had his ways with me. I hope that count as experience lol.

I have been to orangutan zoo exhibits that have many signs asking visitors not to stare directly at the orangutans, as (the signs said something about) it can be taken in upsetting ways. I’ve also seen orangutans right behind a window engaging visitors in deep eye-gazing and what seemed to me to be serious empathic non-verbal communication. So while I wrote before and as @Unofficial_Member just wrote, I have no way to know what the orangutan was thinking, it seems likely that some sort of non-verbal communication or miscommunication was made, with the orangutan and/or the human(s) perhaps bringing feelings into it that weren’t actually about the almost-non-existent child-orangutan relationship. For example, if either or both were annoyed about something else, and/or the child for whatever reason makes some facial expression that the orangutan reads as “come at me bro” or something. ;-)

@Unofficial_Member the “somebody” was a four year old child taken totally by surprise by a half ton weight slamming into the glass a couple of inches behind her, unexpectedly. I’d probably fall off my chair too. “Oh SHIT! THAT was unnecessary!” LOL!

Of course we can’t really know what he was thinking, but all of the above are possibilities.

As to the history of that one orangutan, IDK. But here is an interesting article on one of the females “escaping” last year. Apparently she went for “a bit of a walk” before voluntarily going back into her enclosure.

That reminds me of a story that I read, about a man who worked for an an orangutan rescue center in Indonesia (which is where orangutans come from). One day he went for a walk in the surrounding forest and decided to go off the path to go exploring. Before he knew it, it was nighttime and he had no idea where he was. By chance, he noticed an orangutan who was a regular visitor to the rescue center. She took him by the hand and led him back, no doubt marveling over how dumb humans are.

Excellent. Maybe the orangutan just wanted to pet my grand daughter, but that was the only way he could really make contact.