“Orangutans, Resistance and the Zoo”, 2008-12-16 (; similar):
[On the underappreciated cunning and escape artistry of orangutans. Despite seeming harmless and less of a reputation for intelligence than chimpanzees, they are just as dangerous (often deceptively calm until the instant they attack) and baffle their zookeepers with their escapes.
Orangutans must be captured as infants because adults are too uncooperative. Captive orangutans nevertheless will unscrew bolts and nuts, throw rocks to break glass windows, will trick people into waving to grab their hand and climb out, avoid any escape attempts when zookeepers are watching (even when they are ‘undercover’ as visitors) unless they can take advantage of the zookeepers watching another orangutan, construct ladders out of branches or steal workers’ tools & hide them for later, and cooperate in using them to escape (eg. a pair using a stolen mop handle, one steadying it). Skilled climbers, they can find the most invisible holds, climb up edges using purely finger pressure, and can even shimmy up parallel walls like a human climber; when bringing in expert climbers to find and remove possible routes, the orangutans must be kept out of sight, lest they learn new routes. If a nylon net bars them, they will spend months patiently unraveling it. If electrified wires are added, they will learn to test the wires regularly and wait for an opportunity. One orangutan learned to defeat the wires by grounding it using wood sticks (others used rubber tires), and climbing over on the porcelain insulators. “Fu Manchu” hide a strip of metal in his mouth to pick open the lock on his door, while “Jonathan” used “a slab of cardboard in order to release himself through a complex guillotine door.”
The San Diego Zoo in 1989 spent $117.57$451989k crafting an orangutan exhibit with all this in mind to make it inescapable. An orangutan escaped 4 years later.]
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