Orphaned baby orangutan ready to meet the public after months of specialized care

Tuah, the five month-old Bornean orangutan looks on in the Great Ape Building at Utah's Hogle Zoo Friday, April 10, 2015, in Salt Lake City. Tuah's parents, Eve and Elijah, both passed away last fall; Eve just a few weeks after Tuah's birth. After four months of round-the-clock care from zookeepers and his older sister, an orphaned orangutan baby whose father gained national fame by correctly picking the Super Bowl winner seven straight years is ready to meet the public. (AP Photo/Rick Bowmer) (The Associated Press)

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SALT LAKE CITY – Zoo officials in Salt Lake City are holding a baby shower Saturday for a big-eyed, spikey-haired little boy named Tuah.

A handful of animal keepers at Hogle Zoo found themselves with a tiny red-headed charge when the zoo's female Bornean orangutan, Eve, died a few weeks after giving birth.

Now 5 months old, the 14-inch, 11-pound baby Tuah is just starting to crawl.

Bobbi Gordon says the primate handlers who provided around-the-clock care for the infant "lived like an orangutan."

Orangutans spend most of their time in trees, so an infant orangutan's instinct is to cling to his mother's fur while she builds nests and scavenges for food. So Tuah couldn't be put in a crib like a human baby. He needed to constantly hang onto someone, even while sleeping.