A Great Helper for Great Apes

Meet orangutan expert Biruté Mary Galdikas, who works to protect

the endangered animals and their habitat

Biruté Mary Galdikas has studied orangutans for more than 40 years. These endangered great apes live in the rainforests of Borneo and Sumatra, which are islands in Southeast Asia. Galdikas’s teacher was the famous anthropologist Louis Leakey. He helped her begin her orangutan studies in Borneo.

TFK talked to Galdikas about her fascination with orangutans and the threats they face. Here are parts of the interview.

TIME FOR KIDS (TFK): Is it true that it was at age 6, after reading Curious George, when you became interested in learning more about animals?

BIRUTÉ MARY GALDIKAS: Yes, but I was interested in animals even before I went to kindergarten.

TFK: You founded the Orangutan Foundation International (OFI) in 1986 to help protect orangutans. The animals are endangered because the rainforests where they live, in Indonesia and Malaysia, are being destroyed. Is their habitat disappearing faster than other rainforests?

GALDIKAS: All tropical rainforests are threatened. It appears that the orangutan rainforest habitats in Indonesia and Malaysia are disappearing faster than most. Rainforests in Africa were protected for many years by isolation and war in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. People don’t log very much when a war is going on. They tend to leave the forests alone. The Amazon rainforest is so large you could fit much of the continent of Europe inside it. Its large size has protected it, to some degree. In Indonesia and Malaysia, the rainforests are extremely threatened because of deforestation caused by the palm oil industry. Palm oil is the most commonly used vegetable oil in the world. Up to 50% of processed food in the supermarket contains palm oil!

TFK: You spend at least half the year in Borneo, working with orangutans. What do ______________ find most fascinating about the animals?

GALDIKAS: Orangutans are calm, gentle animals that live in the canopy of the tropical rainforest eating fruit. ______________ have unique personalities that are as different as the personalities of humans are from each other. I feel blessed that ______________ can work with orangutans and study ______________. I enjoy learning about ______________ and their ecology. I have become friends with many orangutans and that gives ______________ the greatest pleasure of all!

Available at: <www.timeforkids.com/news/great-helper-great-apes/230721>. Accessed on: May 11, 2015. Adapted.

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