Ah Meng

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Ah Meng (born circa 18 June 1960) is a famous female Sumatran Orangutan and a tourism icon of Singapore.

Ah Meng was recovered from a local family in 1971, who had kept her as an illegal pet. She belongs to the species of Sumatran Orangutan, a rarer breed of orangutan now critically endangered due to logging and poaching. There are only about 7,500 Sumatran Orangutans left in the wild in the rain forests of Sumatra, Indonesia.

With her amicable behaviour and facial expressions, Ah Meng has become popular and won many fans worldwide, leading to her being chosen as the poster girl of the Singapore Zoo. Pictures of her have been used in Singapore's tourism advertisements all over the globe. Ah Meng has been featured in more than 30 travel films, and has been written about in more than 300 articles.

Ah Meng interacts comfortably with humans, and she can seen regularly shaking hands and having meals with visitors in the zoo's "Breakfast with an Orangutan" programme. Prince Philip of Britain and pop star Michael Jackson are but some of the many foreign dignitaries and celebrities numbered among Ah Meng's past guests. By allowing visitors to interact closely with Ah Meng and other orangutans, the Singapore Zoo aims to raise public awareness of the importance of preserving the orangutan's natural habitat as well as other environmental issues.

Ah Meng is the head of her small clan, which lives in a large orangutan enclosure within the zoo with about twenty other orangutans. She has five children and became a grandmother for the first time in 1990. As she ages, her appearances in public are becoming less common for fear of subjecting her to too much pressure.

In 1992, the Singapore Tourism Board conferred Ah Meng with a "Special Tourism Ambassador" award in recognition of her contribution to Singapore's tourism industry.