Urgent Action Needed to Save the Orangutans: Borneo & Sumatra

One of the first jobs I ever had on my summer break from school was working at a Zoological Garden caring and tending to the various animals interred there albeit not in charge, of course.

From all the animals I came into contact with it was the Orangutans that stole my heart, so to speak.

And now, these gentle giants of the forest are in dire straits and the extinction date is looming ever near. Erik Meijaard wrote in the Opinion yesterday: They are “the people of the forest” and the face of Indonesian conservation. The orangutans of Borneo and Sumatra are uniquely beautiful, undeniably compelling, and incredibly endangered.

Extremely upsetting as the article is, I like the summation of Chief Seattle that I found on one of the Orang Conservation sites:

“What is man without the beasts? If all the beasts were gone, men would die from great loneliness of spirit, for whatever happens to the beasts also happens to man. All things are connected. Whatever befalls the earth befalls the children of the earth.”
– Chief Seattle