Clara is a female orangutan who lived with her calf. They are part of the Orangutan Jungle School, a valuable program that cares for and prepares orangutans before returning them to the wild.

Everything seemed to be going great between mother and daughter, but despite little Clarita’s young age, they had to be separated in a completely unexpected way.

The school is located on the island of Borneo in Indonesia.

Clarita was abducted by a dominant male and by being kept away from her mother at such a young age, she was beginning to run the risk of not being able to survive.

Luckily, the team in charge of monitoring orangutan activity realized what had happened and decided to do something to help Clara reunite with her baby.

Clarita was only a few months old when she was separated from her mother.

After a week they managed to find Clara and Clarita, but they had to be very careful to make sure it was truly a successful reunion.

Once mother and daughter are separated, the mother orangutan may reject her offspring if she notices that it has a different smell. Even worse, she may even hurt it.

Clara and Clarita lived independently and did not belong to any herd.

That’s why the staff prepared and made a very careful approach to show Clara that her baby had returned.

A caregiver carried Clarita in her arms and brought her closer to Clara’s cage. She wanted them to smell each other, while being extremely attentive to the mother’s reactions.

“Don’t let him grab her. He may want to hurt her,” she is heard on the video of the encounter.

They burst into tears at the sight of what the orangutan did after her baby was taken from her hands

A few steps away were other very tense caregivers waiting for the results of this important reunion.

After several minutes, everything seemed to indicate that Clara was extremely happy to be able to see her daughter again, so they decided to open the cage so she could finally take her in her arms. However, there was one more final test Clara had to pass.

“Sometimes the mother rejects the babies and they let them starve to death. They refuse to give them milk,” caregivers said.

The moments the caregivers witnessed were unlike any they had ever seen before

When they opened the cage, Clara seemed anxious to be able to hold her little girl again.

After a couple of minutes, she lay down next to her and finally showed that her mother’s heart was ready to welcome the one she loved most in life.

Little Clarita was hungry, so after eagerly reaching for her mother’s breast, she began to suckle without a problem, delighting everyone.

Baby orangutans usually spend their first seven years of life with their mothers.

The whole team sighed with great relief. Mother and daughter could live together again. The caretaker tried to explain to Clara that the reunion would be final, that she no longer had to fear that her little girl would be taken away from her. And to comfort her and to make her understand that they are there to guarantee her happiness, she said in her ear:

“They won’t take her away from you again, Clara. It won’t happen again. She is yours.

This is the emotional reunion between the mother and her baby that touches even the hardest heart:

Projects like this ensure that orangutans are completely healthy and learn everything they need to be able to live on their own again in the wild.

The reunion between mother and daughter is touching and moving. It demonstrates the enormous importance of preserving the lives of these beautiful animals.