Report: A Great Helper for Great apes

A Great Helper for Great apes

By Amy

A lady, Birute Mary Galdikas, studied about orangutans for over 40 years. Living in the rainforests of Borneo and Sumatra, islands of the southeast Asia, are endangered great apes. Galdikas’s teacher, Louis Leakey, an anthropologist, helped her to begin orangutan studies in Borneo. Leakey also taught two other women; Jane Goodall is known for her work with chimpanzees and Dian Fossey is known for her work with gorillas.

Time for kids(TFK) interviewed Galdikas about her passion with orangutans, the threats that they have to face and how people can help to save orangutans from being pushed to extinction. These are the information TFK collected.

At the age of six, after reading ‘Curious George’, Galdikas became interested in animals. When Galdikas was in second grade, she decided she wanted she wanted to be an explorer. At that time, she didn’t know anything about orangutans and great apes. So she wanted to go to the jungles to learn about where orangutans lived and how they lived.

In 1986, Galdikas founded the Orangutan Foundation International(OFI) to help protect orangutans. These animals are endangered because where they live, the rainforests in Indonesia and Malaysia, are being destroyed rapidly. In Indonesia and Malaysia rainforests, people are cutting the trees down, to produce palm oil. Palm oil is the most common used vegetable oil. Up to 50 percent of palm oil is used for processed food in the supermarket.

Galdikas hopes that people working in palm oil companies should stop cutting down these trees because many animals live in the trees, not just orangutans. Galdikas strongly believe we should help the orangutans by avoid eating food with palm oil in it.

When Galdikas spent at least half a year in Borneo, working with orangutans, she finds orangutans calm and gentle animals. Orangutans are unique animals because their personalities are like humans. Galdikas enjoyed working with them and studying them. She became close friends with many orangutans.