As a juvenile, Vanessa is becoming an expert at making nests! She makes a nest every time she is in the forest. She is very confident in the forest and often searches for fruit far away from her friends. Vanessa is so confident that she has become a teacher to other orangutans her age. Whatever Vanessa does, they do too!
Vanessa is very playful and just loves to have good old fashioned fun. She finds swinging in the trees a great way to have a laugh and spends much of her time in the forest just swinging between trees. Contrary to most “children” Vanessa loves having a bath. Every Sunday, bath day, Vanessa soaps herself up and plays in the water. She often points to the hose to communicate with her caregiver that she wants a bath. If she cannot bathe with water, she will bathe with sand. As this new photo shows, she picks up handfuls of sand and pours it on her face. Perhaps she is trying to get so dirty that her caregiver will give her a soap and water bath! Vanessa is currently 38.6 pounds (17.5 kilograms) and well on her way to being ready for the wild as soon as she is old enough.
