‘Intimate Ape’ Orangutans Featured at Fresno Chaffee Zoo Book Launch on March 13
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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