Zoo Atlanta orangutan Dumadi dies at 13

ATLANTA (41NBC/WMGT) – Zoo Atlanta announced Thursday its 13-year-old male Sumatran orangutan, named Dumadi, was found dead by his care team Thursday morning.

The zoo said in a release that the orangutan had shown no clinical signs of abnormalities in the days prior to his death.

“The unexpected loss of Dumadi is devastating for the Zoo Atlanta community and is a great loss for his critically endangered species,” said Hayley Murphy, DVM, Deputy Director. “We are doing all that we can to understand what happened.”

The zoo says a necropsy (the non-human equivalent of an autopsy) will be performed through the zoo’s partnership with the University of Georgia Zoo and Exotic Animal Pathology Service in the College of Veterinary Medicine. Results should be available “in several weeks.”

Dumadi was born on October 22, 2006 at the Fort Wayne Children’s Zoo in Indiana. He was orphaned by his mother’s sudden death shortly after his birth, and the Association of Zoos and Aquariums’ Orangutan Species Survival Plan recommended he move to Zoo Atlanta to meet Madu, an adult female Sumatran orangutan who had no biological offspring of her own but had successfully adopted another orangutan infant a few years earlier.

“Dumadi became the second of Madu’s four adopted infants and is survived by Madu, 36, and his adoptive brother and sister, Remy, 9, and Keju, 4,” the release said. “He is predeceased by his eldest adoptive brother Bernas.”

The zoo says orangutans face extinction “within a decade” without targeted conservation efforts.

“Home to one of North America’s largest populations of orangutans, Zoo Atlanta is one of only a small number of zoos to pursue and attain membership in the Roundtable for Sustainable Palm Oil™ (RSPO),” the release said. “The Zoo and many other accredited zoos are vocal advocates for encouraging the use of only sustainable palm oil, supporting only companies who use sustainably produced oil and celebrating those corporations who make the switch to sustainable, and raising public awareness of the necessity for informed shopping.”

Learn more at zooatlanta.org.