From treks through the jungles of Sumatra to musical experiments at the Saint Louis Zoo, author Shawn Thompson examines all aspects of orangutan culture and conservation in his new book, The Intimate Ape: Orangutans and the Secret Life of a Vanishing Species (Citadel Press), which will be launched at an event co-sponsored by the Orangutan Conservancy at the Fresno Chaffee Zoo on Saturday, March 13.

The Intimate Ape is one of the first books to juxtapose the intelligence and empathy of orangutans with their current extinction status in situ, and uses examples from the spectrum of orangutans found in captivity and in the wild.

The Fresno Chaffee Zoo event, “Measuring the Worth of the Life of One Orangutan: A Celebration and Commemoration,” will occur at 5 p.m. (PST) and will be streamed live via the internet. A panel of experts will discuss a variety of orangutan issues, focusing primarily on Aazk, an orangutan featured in the book that died at the zoo in 2003 of natural causes.

The book includes a number of projects supported by the Orangutan Conservancy (OC), including the rescue and rehabilitation centers in Borneo and Sumatra, and conservation outreach programs such as the Orang Utan Republik Education Initiative.

“This is a fascinating book, and Shawn Thompson has done an excellent job of revealing orangutans to be intelligent, sensitive and dynamic beings,” said OC president Norm Rosen. “Each of the stories in this book help build the case for saving orangutans, but it goes one step further — it adds an urgency that OC is proud to support.”
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Countries across south-east Asia are being systematically drained of wildlife to meet a booming demand for exotic pets in Europe and Japan and traditional medicine in China – posing a greater threat to many species than habitat loss or global warming.

More than 35 million animals were legally exported from the region over the past decade, official figures show, and hundreds of millions more could have been taken illegally. Almost half of those traded were seahorses and more than 17 million were reptiles. About 1 million birds and 400,000 mammals were traded, along with 18 million pieces of coral.

The situation is so serious that experts have invented a new term – empty forest syndrome – to describe the gaping holes in biodiversity left behind.

“There’s lots of forest where there are just no big animals left,” says Chris Shepherd of Traffic, the wildlife trade monitoring network. “There are some forests where you don’t even hear birds.”

Seahorses, butterflies, turtles, lizards, snakes, macaques, birds and corals are among the most common species exported from countries such as Malaysia, Indonesia and Vietnam. Much of the business is controlled by criminal gangs, Shepherd says, and many of the animals end up in Europe as pets. The rarer the species, the greater the demand and the higher the price. Collectors will happily pay several thousand pounds for a single live turtle.
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Almost half of the world’s primate species – which include apes, monkeys and lemurs – are threatened with extinction due to the destruction of tropical forests and illegal hunting and trade.

In a report highlighting the 25 most endangered primate species, conservationists have outlined the desperate plight of primates from Madagascar, Africa, Asia and Central and South America, with some populations down to just a few dozen in number.

The golden headed langur, which is found only on the island of Cat Ba in north-eastern Vietnam, is down to 60 to 70 individuals. And there are fewer than 100 northern sportive lemurs left in Madagascar, and around 110 eastern black crested gibbons in northeastern Vietnam.

Sumatran orangutans, which are thought to number approximately 6,600 in the wild, are categorized as “critically endangered,” while the Bornean orangutan (54,000) is listed as “endangered.”

Of the world’s 634 primate species, 48% are classified as threatened with extinction on the IUCN’s “red list” of threatened species. The latest report was compiled by 85 primatologists working in the field and will be launched today at Bristol Zoo by a coalition of conservation groups including the IUCN and Conservation International and the International Primatological Society

“All over the world, it’s mainly habitat destruction that affects primates the most,” said Christoph Schwitzer, head of research at the Bristol Conservation and Science Foundation and one of the authors of the report. “Illegal logging, fragmentation of forests through fires, hunting is a big issue in several African countries and also now in Madagascar. In Asia one of the main problems is trade in hearts for traditional medicine, mainly into China.”
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The Great Apes Film Initiative (GAFI) and the Sumatran Orangutan Society (SOS) will present Patrick Rouxel’s `Losing Tomorrow’, a poetical film on the habitat of orangutans and an insight into the logging industry in Indonesia, and `Dear Mr President’, a short film created at the request of local communities in Sumatra, at a benefit on March 10 in Oxford, United Kingdom.

The films, which will be screened at The Old Music Hall (106-108 Cowley Road, Oxford) beginning at 6: 30 p.m., will use a newly developed Pedal Power Cinema. Admission is £3 ($5).

Conservationist Ian Redmond, OBE, will be the guest speaker for the evening. Redmond has worked with great apes for over 30 years and will be on hand to share his experiences and answer any questions. There will also be a raffle, refreshments and merchandise for sale.

Places are limited so pre-booking is strongly recommended. Please contact 01865 403343 (U.K.) or e-mail: click to email.

All money raised at this event will go towards a Pedal Power Cinema for conservation education projects with communities living near the last remaining forests in Sumatra.

(Source: Great Apes Film Initiative)