A 12-week old orangutan, whose mother could not feed him, has joined his new family at Monkey World in Wareham.

Sibu Jr joined the Wareham based rescue centre from the Dublin Zoo as his mother failed to feed him – despite the best efforts by the zoo to show the mother how to breastfeed.

According to Monkey World, his mother has a history of being unable to care for her babies.

Sibu Jr is now being looked after by foster mother Oshine, a Bornean orang-utan who was rescued from the illegal pet trade in South Africa in 2010.

A spokesperson for Monkey World said: “Sibu Junior was born on July 31 and despite his mother clearly loving him, she did not possess the skills to position him so he could feed, so the difficult decision was taken to remove Sibu Junior to be hand reared, to save the youngster.”

The team at Dublin Zoo cared for Sibu Junior round the clock for the first couple months of his life, while arrangements were made to transfer him to Monkey World.

Baby boy orangutan Sibu Jr, with his cuddly friend Picture: Monkey World

Monkey World is home to a specialist orangutan crèche for orphaned and rejected infants, which aims to break cycle of abandonment and help female orang-utans rear their own young in future.

“Orangutans have the longest childhood of any primate apart from humans, and as they are semi-solitary in the wild, they depend upon these early years to learn everything from their mother which they will need in adult life, including climbing, feeding and child-rearing,” a spokesperson added.

“It appears when young orang-utans are unable to be mother reared, they do not learn the skills to enable them to look after their own children. For the little boys like Sibu Junior, growing up in the Orang-utan Nursery Crèche gives them the skills to live with women and children when they become fully mature males.”

The nursery is currently home to four other young orang-utans born in zoos in Hungary, Germany and the UK, who were also unable to be reared by their own mothers.

Sibu Jr is just 12 weeks old Picture: Monkey World

Director of Monkey World, Dr Alison Cronin MBE, travelled to Dublin to meet the vulnerable infant, and bring him back to Monkey World.

She was accompanied back to the Dorset sanctuary by a member of Sibu Junior’s care team from Dublin, to keep his transition as stress free as possible.

Dr Cronin said: “It is really too bad that Sibu’s mother did not feed him, it was what everyone had hoped for.

“In the end the team at Dublin Zoo saved the baby’s life and cared for him around the clock while necessary health checks and paperwork were completed for the transfer of the infant to Monkey World.

Sibu Jr is adjusting to life in Dorset Picture: Monkey World

“It is so important that orphan orang-utans grow up with others of their own kind. Monkey World specialises in the care of these very vulnerable infants and has specialist facilities to aid in their development and integration into the Nursery Crèche.

“At present Sibu is just over 3kg and is taking 90mls of formula at a time, throughout the day and night.

“He is not ready to join the others just yet but it won’t be long before he is able to sit up and move around on his own. Then he can start spending days in the nursery and get to know some of the others that live there.

“Sibu’s future in the nursery crèche is a long one as he will stay with us, growing up with other orang-utans for the next 10 years before having an adult group of his own someday.”

Including Sibu Junior, Monkey World has received 10 orphan orang-utans from seven different countries to date.