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Kera had been alone for what felt like forever, although it had in fact only been a few months.
She had never bonded with her previous mate, Iwani, who would either bully or ignore her. Then he had suddenly died, leaving the zoo with a large, lush green habitat and only one siamang to occupy it.
Her keepers did their best to keep her happy, with delicious foods hidden around her enclosure so she could forage for them, and puzzles to keep her brilliant mind and nimble fingers occupied. But they could tell that Kera was lonely. Her lustrous dark eyes seemed to have lost their sparkle, and without another voice to duet with, she stayed silent. Siamang gibbons were pair-bond animals, and what Kera needed more than any enrichment was a mate.
“Perhaps another zoo or wildlife park will take her,” one of the Auckland Zoo primate keepers said during a meeting, for there did not appear to be any available single males in the Australasian region, and the long months it could take to find a male overseas could prove very detrimental to Kera. But sending her away would create a massive gap in the Southeast Asia Jungle Track collection and leave the zoo having to source a whole new pair of gibbons or consider another animal exhibit altogether.
“We must do what is best for Kera,” the zoo staff reluctantly agreed, and began to look for another placement for their sad little gibbon.
Then one day, Kera awoke to what must have seemed like a miracle to her weary, lonely eyes.
Behind a screen of mesh, alert and piercing eyes watched Kera with a mixture of fascination and playfulness. The newcomer was larger than Kera, but seemed happy and relaxed, with no signs of teeth-baring or other threatening behaviour.
This was Intan.
He had come from a zoo in Christchurch, and his intended placement in an Australian zoo had fallen through soon after the Auckland Zoo staff had met to decide about rehoming Kera. He had turned out to be an excellent temperamental and genetic match for Kera, and so, instead of sending Kera away, as soon as the paperwork could be signed and arrangements made, Intan was on a plane and Auckland-bound.
Through the safety of the mesh, Intan and Kera watched and mirrored each other, sitting close together and getting used to each other’s scent. Soon, there were attempts to play and groom one another, and within two weeks the primate keepers were able to dispense with the mesh and house the two gibbons together.
Intan was lively and full of mischief, and he would often launch himself at Kera when she sat in one of the nesting baskets, either behind the scenes or out on display in front of the viewing window, and the joyous pair would roll around in an affectionate tussle, a gentle form of wrestling that had the visitors laughing in delight, cameras clicking and phones raised high.
And most importantly, Intan and Kera were finding their own special song.
About mid-morning, Kera would gently nudge Intan and begin her high-pitched, hooting calls. Intan would soon join her, mingling his own loud hoots with deep, bassy booms, and the pair would scramble high up in the trees or onto the climbing frames. Note by note, their duet wove a bond between them, their throat sacs inflated to send the sound echoing across the zoo and beyond.
Sometimes the notes would falter or waver off-key in those earliest days, but not for long. The melodies soon found their true pathway again, announcing to the world that this habitat, and perhaps this entire zoo, was Intan and Kera’s domain.
Their calls were so loud that they could be heard in the nearby residential neighbourhoods, especially when the gibbons were given access to the aerial pathways, a network of long ropes held together by tall towers high above the zoo. From these, Intan and Kera could project their song further still, often stunning visitors into silence when Kera’s shrill long barks led up to the ear-splitting crescendo of Intan’s bitonal scream.
And their song could even be used to speak, in a way, communicating from one species to another.
One Saturday morning, Intan and Kera did not have access to the aerial pathways; instead, their neighbours the orangutans were the ones allowed to climb upon the towers and the high ropes. Intan was not happy about that, gazing up to where Charlie, the adult male orangutan, sat on the nearest tower staring smugly down at the gibbons who were now only able to climb as high as the trees and climbing frames in their habitat allowed.
Kera started the song, her high notes sweet and clear in the summer wind, and Intan soon started calling along with her and booming, puffing out his chest and swinging on one of the poles, glaring up at Charlie all the while as if to say, “The nerve of that big orange fellow! That’s my spot!”
It was the loudest song the siamang pair had ever sung, with visitors hurrying over to the gibbons’ area to see what all the racket was about, and small children clamping their hands over their ears to muffle the noise. But beneath the shrieking and the clamour and the challenge to the mighty Charlie lay a purity, an unbreakable connection, a message that broadcast to everyone within earshot that Kera loved Intan, Intan loved Kera, and the world belonged to them.
After one last ringing cry from Intan, the gibbon pair fell silent, with Kera softly reaching to groom Intan’s bristling dark hair and Intan at last turning his gaze away from Charlie and towards his beloved mate.
Silence reigned for several minutes, until a warm, melodic sound began to emanate from the top of the tower, its resonance gentler than the song of Intan and Kera, but just as breathtaking.
Perhaps Charlie’s long call was saying to the gibbons and the world, “This zoo is orangutan territory.” Or it could have been saying, “No, Intan, this is not your spot, it is mine.” But in that golden moment, the orangutan’s deep, reverberating voice conveyed a recognition of the siamang pair’s timeless song, and of their love.