Orangs and iPads: There's an ape for that

Orangutans, it turns out, love the iPad and its games just as much as some humans do.

A budding program at the Milwaukee County Zoo is working to place iPads into the giant, gentle palms of its orangutans. Two of the zoo's orangutans already look forward to weekly sessions with an iPad. They even have favorite apps, shows, and games, but they haven't yet been given free rein with the Apple device because keepers worry they might get frustrated and simply snap one in half.

"One of the biggest hurdles we face is that an orangutan can snap an iPad like you or I could rip cardboard," said Richard Zimmerman, executive director of Orangutan Outreach, which hopes to extend Milwaukee's iPad enrichment program to zoos around the country. "Even the little guys . . . are incredibly strong. A big male could take it apart in about five seconds."

Before extending the program, allowing the orangutans to have personal iPads, Zimmerman and his group need to find an orangutan-proof case. But the program is still making strides in its infancy in Milwaukee.

It started as an April Fool's joke, Scott Engel, the iPad enrichment coordinator at the zoo, tells me.

"A friend of a friend who is a gorilla keeper at the zoo was half-joking about getting an iPad to use with gorillas after seeing a story in the U.K. Sun," he said.

While the Sun story was an April Fool's Day joke, Engel thought, why not? So he contacted Milwaukee County Zoo to float the idea of using his old iPad to work with orangutans. Now Engel spends 20 minutes three to four days a week working with orangutans MJ and Mahal.

Engel started by showing the two the device through the glass where visitors usually stand. First he turned on his iPad 2's camera and let the two use it as a sort of mirror.

"It was amazing to see how they welcomed this strange device into their area," he said.

Once they were used to the iPad, the keepers started using the device in a back area where the orangutans could reach through a cage door and touch it. Last week, the two had their first chance to go completely hands- and feet-on with the device, though it still isn't allowed in the enclosure with them.

Both have favorite apps, spending quite a bit of time finger-painting with DrawFree, watching television shows, and playing games. They've tried iFishPond and Flick Kick Football, and seem to really love the interactive book The Fantastic Flying Books of Morris Lessmore.

"I'll show (Morris Lessmore) to them through the glass and they love the combination of movement, sound, and color," Engel said.

The orangutans also seem particularly enchanted with videos.

"We'll show the orangutans videos of themselves, videos of wild orangutans, and other animals that reside at the zoo," Engel said. "This has been very successful and really seems to hold their interest. In fact I think orangutan MJ has a crush on David Attenborough. Whenever he comes on to narrate a scene, her eyes light up and she just stares."

The notion of enrichment at zoos is important, especially with orangutans, highly intelligent creatures that require mental stimulation to keep from growing bored or depressed, Zimmerman said.

"Orangutans are very tactile and their natural curiosity is perfect for a device like an iPad," he said. "They are open to all types of enrichment and we think that the touch-screen 'games' will be really good for them - especially during the winter months in northern climates when they spend long periods of time indoors. . . . We have a lot of different ideas we want to try with them and a lot of interest in the zoo community around the country."