Baboon Adopts Bush Baby
Unlikely pair at animal orphanage
Orphan bush baby Gakii has found himself a new mother at the Nairobi Animal Orphanage in Kenya. His new mom is not much older than he is: she’s a yellow baboon who was also abandoned.
The two are now inseparable, running around in each other’s arms and drinking out of the same bottle.
“This hasn’t happened here before,” said Edward Kariuki, one of the caregivers at the orphanage.
The baboon was abandoned by her family in Northern Kenya, and the bush baby was found in central Kenya.
According to Charles Musyoki, a senior scientist for species and conservation at the Kenya Wildlife Service, the last time a friendship like this was recorded was in 2002, when a lioness adopted and nurtured a young oryx, a large antelope that lions normally hunt.
Sooner or later, as both animals grow up, they will need to develop in their own ways. Just for starters, yellow baboons are active during the day and they sleep at night, while bush babies are nocturnal animal.
“In the natural world they are very separated in terms of time,” Musyoki said, but that for now, at least, “they need each other for companionship, for friendship and play.”