Staff members at the Shanghai Zoo have published a personal ad to find a playmate for Qingqing, a lonely, two-year-old male orangutan.

Female orangutans near Qingqing's age would be ideal playmates, the ad says, since the baby orangutan will need a mate someday.

The Shanghai Zoo has posted an ad to find a companion for Qingqing, a two-year-old orangutan. [Photo: dfdaily.com]

Qingqing is one of only two orangutans at the zoo, the Oriental Morning Post reported, and has been living alone since his transfer from the Chongqing Zoo last October.

"We try to spend as much time with him as we can, but too much human contact may hinder his communication with his own group," Yao Jianzhuang, head of the zoo's primates section, said.

Though the Shanghai Zoo is home to another orangutan, it is 27 years old and is too big to play with Qingqing, Yao said.

The zoo has tried to enrich the baby orangutan's life by adding extra toys and furnishings to his room, but they are no substitute for a playmate.

Isolated orangutans tend to be ill-tempered and fall prey to more aggressive members of the species, Yao said.

Orangutans are known for their intelligence, long arms and reddish-brown hair. They are indigenous to Southeast Asia, but the wild population of the species has decreased sharply in recent years. They are now protected at the state level in China.

The Shanghai Zoo is not the first to publish a personal ad for one of its animals, the newspaper said. A British zoo posted an ad for a 16-year-old female orangutan in 2007, and a zoo in Nanjing started an international blog in Chinese and English in 2006 to find a bride for a six-year-old orangutan.

(CRI March 5, 2008)