Four-year-old rescued orangutan Surya is having a whale of a time playing on an inflatable jet ski at the centre which is its home.
Four-year-old rescued orangutan Surya is having a whale of a time playing on an inflatable jet ski at the centre which is its home.
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The animal, dressed in a child's wetsuit to keep it warm, enjoys floating across the wide pool, before waving at onlookers.
Surya lives at The Institute of Greatly Endangered and Rare Species in Miami, Florida, USA.
He is put in the pool every week to keep him active and challenged and appears to enjoy splashing about with his trainers.
Animal expert Dr Bhagavan Antle said: "Suyra loves playing in the water. But he doesn't like getting his head wet, so he wears a lifejacket so he doesn't go underneath.
"He is quite content when he's bobbing around on the top. And he loves the jet ski because he can look down on all of us."
Dr Antle and his team of handlers introduced Surya and other orangutans to water when they were just babies and played in a large bath.
"The orangutans love playing in the bath. But they don't swim naturally and so if you introduce them to the pool, they'd sink to the bottom," he said.
"So we discovered wearing children's lifejackets helps to give them confidence. Now some of them can even swim without their life jackets.
"But Surya prefers the jet ski and he'll always head for it as soon as we get into the pool."
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