A Frome wildlife enthusiast is planning a fundraising event with a difference.

Michelle Stevens, aged 26, has worked at Longleat for the past eight years and has had a fascination with orangutans for as far back as she can remember.

Miss Stevens is planning an aerial tree trek at Center Parcs later this month and is trying to raise £32,000 for an orangutan enrichment programme in Indonesia this summer.

Miss Stevens said: “I have always had a strong affiliation with orangutans as they are such beautiful, gentle and charismatic creatures.

“I was fortunate enough to get up close to one and see how similar they are to us and it made me want to be pro-active about their situation in the wild.”

She spent a month at the Matang Wildlife Centre last April with the Great Orangutan Project and it is through doing this that she met the leader of the enrichment project, Heather Roberts.

Ms Roberts has a vision to start an enrichment program for the 225 orangutans that are in bare cages with nothing to do.

It is hoped these animals will be released in the future, but they need certain skills to help them survive in the wild.

Miss Stevens said enrichment, by using of climbing frames, ropes and feed puzzles, can help the rehabilitation process by encouraging the orangutans to use their natural abilities and behaviours.

She added: “The idea is that a team of seven ex-volunteers of the Great Orangutan Project travel there as ambassadors and show what can be done.

“It is hoped if this is successful, that a volunteer project can then be set up.

“So this is where the fundraising comes in.

“We need to raise £32,000 to start this project, to buy in materials etc. The money will go directly to the orangutans and all volunteers are funding their own flights.”

Miss Stevens is hoping to complete the fundraising event on Monday, March 16.