A female orangutan, who had failed to bond with either of her first two offspring (and as a result had both died), found 30 volunteer human mothers, to come in to breastfeed their babies in front of the orangutan.
The exhibit was shut, so that the mothers could breastfeed topless – allowing Mujur the 19 year old mother to be, to see what was happening. As can be seen from the image, the orangutan showed a great deal of interest in the breastfeeding – and as well, Mujur was shown videos of orangutans feeding their babies.
Unfortunately, while this education worked, she was not able to work out how to hold the youngster well, so in the end, it was transferred to another institution, and fed by humans (unfortunately all orangutan species are critically endangered (while the the Bornean orangutan still lives in the wild in large numbers, the decline still ranks them as critically endangered, as they are heading towards extinction (without a change in the loss of forest, something that does not appear to be happening.
What is fascinating about this story, is the fact that while in lower intelligence animals, much of nurturing behaviour is innate, in higher intelligence animals such as great apes, they can struggle without the role model of their own mother.