Orangutan mugs French tourist for backpack in Malaysian wildlife sanctuary
09/25/07
KUCHING: She had watched them in wildlife documentaries, looked up about them on the Internet and read about them in magazines.
It became ingrained in 24-year-old Odile Nordon’s mind that orang utans were docile, mild-mannered and shy creatures.
That perception was shattered on Sunday when the Frenchwoman, here on holiday, got involved in a “tussle” with a female orang utan while visiting the Semenggoh Wildlife Centre, an orang utan sanctuary, 25km from here.
She was slightly hurt and shaken up by the experience.
While taking photos of a group of orang utans during feeding time at the Bamboo Garden about 10.30am, Nordon paid no heed to “Delima”, a female orang utan, approaching her.
Delima suddenly grabbed the backpack Nordon was carrying, forcing the French-woman to put up a fight to stop the orang utan from taking it away. Her friend, Dalia Orlean, 23, joined in the tussle.
The angry Delima then turned on Nordon, ripping off the pants she was wearing and scratching her on her thighs.
“Never for a moment did I think the orang utan would attack me,” Nordon said.
“After all that I had seen and read, I thought they were not wild. My perception after watching them on TV and reading about them in magazines was that orang utans in Borneo were friendly, cuddly creatures.
“It’s a painful lesson to find out the truth,” said Nordon, who left for Singapore hours after the incident.
“It was not an attack. Delima did not attack the French-woman,” the state’s chief park warden, Wilfred Landong, said yesterday.
“It was a tussle. The woman and the orang utan fought over a backpack.
“The injuries the woman suffered are not from the orang utan’s bites but from her fingernails.
“If she (Nordon) had been bitten, the orang utan would have torn chunks of flesh from her thighs.”
Landong said he believed Delima thought that the backpack Nordon was carrying contained food for her since it was feeding time and, therefore, went for it.
“When a tug-of-war for the bag ensued, Delima must have got angry and become furious,” he said.
“Orang utans don’t normally attack people. They are certainly shy creatures but they can be aggressive when provoked or when they feel threatened.”
Orlean admitted hitting Delima’s arms to force her to let go of the bag.
Landong said one of the signs posted at the centre advised visitors to walk away when approached by orang utans as they were curious creatures and wanted to take whatever visitors had.
Source: New Strait Times Online
