AN orang-utan is being sent to rehab for smoking after getting hooked on butts visitors have been throwing into her cage for years.
Tori the orang-utan started smoking 10 years ago after imitating the behaviour of visitors puffing away at Taru Jurug zoo in Solo, Java, the Jakarta Globe reported.
Now, when a craving strikes, she holds two fingers to her mouth and becomes irritated when she cannot get her fix.
Her partner Didik disapproves of the habit and stamps out the cigarettes whenever possible. But the zoo has been forced to the extra step of moving the pair away from human smokers.
Spokesman for the Borneo-based Center for Orang-utan Protection, Hardi Baktiantoro, said the orang-utans would be moved to a small island in the middle of a lake where the large trees and rope swings would help distract her and break her addiction.
"Orang-utans and humans have 97 per cent similarity, so Tori imitated human behaviour," Mr Baktiantoro said.
"It is very common in Indonesian zoos for people to throw cigarettes or food [at animals] even though there are signs to not feed or give cigarettes.
It happens all the time. [In Tori's case], people will throw cigarettes in, watch her smoke, start laughing and take pictures."
The orang-utan’s parents were also smokers and many more of the apes in the zoo are hooked, Mr Baktiantoro said.
