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Orangutan birthday at Melbourne Zoo

Melbourne Zoo's orangutan Maimunah has celebrated her 29th birthday.

(AAP Image/Tracey Nearmy)
Orang-utan Maimunah celebrates her 29th birthday with a banana cake at Melbourne Zoo in Melbourne, Friday, May 22, 2015. (AAP Image/Tracey Nearmy) Source: (AAP Image/Tracey Nearmy)

Melbourne Zoo's orangutan Maimunah went ape for cake to celebrate her 29th birthday.

She posed for the cameras as she opened presents and munched on her special birthday cake, complete with a number 29 written in strawberries.

Inside her present box she found popcorn and other treats but her baby, Dewi, found the box more entertaining and walked around with it on her head.

Primate keeper Fleur Butcher said Maimunah was the zoo's princess and they made sure the cake had all her favourite foods.

"She doesn't like kiwi fruit so we made sure it wasn't put on the cake," Ms Butcher told AAP on Friday.

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Maimunah was born at Zurich Zoo in Switzerland and made the move to Melbourne in 1992 to meet her Canadian mate Santan.

Since then she has had two babies at the zoo, Dewi and Menyaru.

But it's no party for her orangutan family in the wild, with deforestation for palm oil plantations wiping out much of their natural habitat.

Ms Butcher spends up to a month every year working in an orangutan sanctuary in Borneo to raise orphans and release them back into the wild.

Through their Zoopermarket campaign, Melbourne Zoo is encouraging people to only buy products containing certified sustainable palm oil.


2 min read

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Source: AAP


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