Zoo decides right turn for Tori means quitting the cigarettes

Published on 07/07/2012 00:00

Tori the 15-year-old orangutan, who has been smoking cigarettes at an Indonesian zoo for a decade, is about to be forced to kick the habit.

Zookeepers said yesterday they plan to move Tori away from visitors who regularly throw lit cigarettes into her cage so they can watch and photograph her puffing away.

The primate mimics human behaviour, holding cigarettes casually between her fingers while taking long drags and blowing bursts of smoke out of her nostrils.

Taru Jurug Zoo director Lili Krisdianto said the move was aimed to protect four endangered orangutans at the zoo in the central Java town of Solo.

Results of a medical test are expected to show how much Tori’s smoking has affected her health, said Hardi Baktiantoro of the Borneo-based Centre for
Orangutan Protection.

Several Indonesian zoos have come under scrutiny following animal deaths, including a giraffe that died in the long-troubled Surabaya Zoo in March with an 18 kilogramme (40lb) ball of plastic in its stomach after years of eating the rubbish thrown into its enclosure by visitors.