Kansas City, Mo. ? A baby orangutan at the Kansas City Zoo is bonding well with an adoptive mother after zoo workers took care of baby Kalijon for months.

The orangutan mother had refused to nurse her new baby. So zookeepers began human intervention to save the youngest member of a highly endangered species.

About 30 staff members and volunteers worked around the clock for five months to nurture the infant. They took shifts wearing a hot, furry shirt on their chest, bottle-fed her and slept with her at night.

The humans even took her along while going to the bathroom.

The effort has paid off because the baby now clings contentedly to a foster orangutan mother.

And zoo workers hope the experience will nurture maternal behavior in future generations of the endangered animals.

While spending time with the orangutan, the helpers didn’t have much of a choice in activities. She would knock away books, and watching TV was what most used to pass the time.

“That orangutan has probably watched more movies than any other ape,” joked zookeeper Heidi Fisher.

The orangutan’s bloodline comes from among the most desirable genetic stock among Borneo orangutans in North America.

“We’re just glad we have a baby,” said Randy Wisthoff, director of the Kansas City Zoo.

Orangutans are the only ape found in Southeast Asia, but their forest habitat is fast being cleared for lumber and for palm plantations as palm oil is used extensively in cosmetics and in processed foods from snack chips to chocolate.

Orangutans foraging for food often are killed by farmers.

Borneo Orangutan Survival Foundation said there are fewer than 60,000 left in the wild, with even fewer Sumatra orangutans.

Kansas City Zoo workers call their baby Kali, for short. She now is about 8 pounds with big eyes and Bozo-like tufts of red hair that stick out from her head.

The zoo now has seven Borneo orangutans of varying ages. Breeding is controlled by a species survival plan that attempts to maintain a diverse gene pool.

For this birth, a female was sent to Kansas City from the Henry Doorly Zoo in Omaha, Neb., to mate with a young male from the Lowry Park Zoo in Tampa, Fla.

Both are rated as highly desirable for their stock.

The mother had also rejected her first baby, but keepers had hoped for better results and used a stuffed doll to encourage maternal behavior in her. She was not responsive.

Wisthoff said maternal behavior seems to be a learned behavior among apes.

In the past, the baby would have been placed in a zoo nursery and left to grow up not knowing what it means to be an orangutan.

“The biggest thing was the health of the baby, obviously,” said animal curator Sean Putney. “But the ultimate plan was to lessen our role and get her back with the orangutans.”

One of Kansas City’s other female orangutans, Jill, successfully reared her own daughter, born here seven years ago.

Keepers had high hopes that she would adopt the new baby. On Sept. 23, keepers put Kalijon with Jill. Within a few hours, the two had bonded and Kalijon “has never looked back,” Fisher said.