Animal-loving accountant Anna Godwin swapped real business for monkey business when she spent a month volunteering at a wildlife sanctuary in Borneo.
Anna took advantage of a bonus holiday from her firm HURST to care for orang-utans and other primates, sun bears and hornbills at the Matang Wildlife Sanctuary in Sarawak, Malaysia.
The 29-year-old, who lives in Eccles, Salford, spent her days putting out food for the animals, cleaning their enclosures, painting and making other improvements to their living conditions.
She qualified for an additional four weeks’ holiday under a career enrichment incentive for staff who remain at HURST for two years after they qualify. Anna, an audit senior, joined HURST in 2010 and qualified in September 2013.
Matang is a rehabilitation centre in the Borneo rainforest for orang-utans which have been orphaned or rescued from captivity. They are taught how to survive in the wild wherever possible.
Besides primates, Matang has enclosures for crocodiles, deer, sun bears and Civet cats as well as large aviaries housing sea eagles, hornbills, storks and other birds native to Sarawak.
Anna said: “I have always loved animals and thought that I could do something really worthwhile in four weeks,” she said.
“I was looking at all sorts of options around the world but I had a cute picture of an orang-utan as my screen saver on my mobile phone and decided it would be great to go to Matang.
“It was hard work and definitely not a holiday in the usual sense of the word, but it was worth every penny.
“We’d spend the mornings cleaning the enclosures and putting out food, and the afternoons on construction and animal enrichment projects.
“For example, we mixed cement to fill in holes the sun bears had dug in their enclosures and to make a path to a new aviary for hornbills, and made swings and hammocks for the monkeys.
“Animal enrichment time meant making treats for the animals or packages with food hidden inside for them to try to open.”
Matang has a strict no-contact policy with the animals so human germs are not passed on to them – even a common cold can be fatal to the young.
The policy is also in place for people’s safety and so that the animals do not get too used to humans and become reluctant to return to the wild.
Matang’s most famous resident is Aman, an orang-utan who lived in the semi-wild but bit an electricity cable on a building site and was blinded.
He became the first orang-utan in the world to have cataract surgery.
Anna said: “It was a privilege to be around such magnificent creatures but sad to see those behind bars because they have nowhere else to go.
“It was the experience of a lifetime and lots of fun meeting lots of new people, being around the animals and getting to know them, but it was also quite a sobering experience.
“I would like to go back in a few years to see how things have progressed.”
