Tori, from the Taru Jurug Zoo in Solo, on the island of Java in Indonesia, has been hooked on her nicotine fix for 10 years.
Visitors to the zoo throw in lit cigarettes so they can enjoy the show of a smoking ape. It’s thought that Solo developed her smoking habit after watching keepers smoke and picking up the leftover butts.
There are plans to move the 15-year-old ape and her partner to an island at the zoo with rope swings and activities, away from visitors later this year.
Hardi Baktiantoro of the Borneo-based Centre for Orangutan Protection told The Guardian “It is very common in Indonesian zoos for people to throw cigarettes or food even though there are signs to not feed or give cigarettes. It happens all the time.”
In 2010 at Taru Jurug Zoo a lion escaped from its cage due to a keeper’s error and killed a camel. Earlier this year a giraffe was found dead after eating an accumulated mass of plastic litter thrown into its’ cage by zoo visitors.
