Many believe the first Orangutan Species Survival Plan (SSP) Husbandry Workshop was long overdue. That said, it may still have been in time to help save wild orangutans.

The workshop, which was staged October 16-18 at the Brookfield Zoo in Chicago, successfully focused on issues of conservation, habitat destruction, and illegal logging, even as it addressed over 125 delegates largely representing zoos in the United States and Europe. Eight countries were represented, and guest speakers from field projects in Borneo and Sumatra underscored the urgency of the in situ situation.

The Orangutan Conservancy (OC) worked closely with Brookfield Zoo organizers to help identify important topics and speakers. OC chairman Norm Rosen unveiled the organization’s Orangutan Crisis Coalition agenda as part of the program, and later took part with OC vice-president Doug Cress in a conservation forum that included media from around the country.

The OC also received a $5,100 gift from the Brookfield Zoo as a result of proceeds from a silent auction.

The SSP is an Association of Zoos & Aquariums (AZA) initiative that was begun in 1981 to manage the captive populations of endangered species in North American zoos. More than 107 SSPs currently oversee the husbandry of 161 species.

But the Orangutan SSP had never held formal meetings, making the Brookfield Zoo workshop doubly important. With dire reports from the field as to the rapid disappearance of wild orangutans and their habitat, topics such as the Indonesian pet trade and oil palm expansion shared the stage with enclosure construction and captive breeding in zoos. Speakers included orangutan field researchers such as Cheryl Knott, Ian Singleton, Serge Wich, Anne Russon and Suci Suci, and more than a dozen delegates had experience at rehabilitation centers in either Sumatra or Borneo.

Vince Sodaro,the lead primate keeper at the Brookfield Zoo, said the conference will only be judged successful if it provides a starting point for protecting apes. “Here we defined the issues that we must face if we want these animals to be around 50 years from now,” he told the Chicago Sun-Times.

The workshop also presented an opportunity for the OC to build working relationships with the zoos in Europe and North America that care for orangutans. As a result, the OC is already consulting with the Oregon Zoo, the Hogle Zoo in Salt Lake City, Busch Gardens in Tampa, and several other institutions to prepare signage and information campaigns that present the wild orangutan crisis effectively to zoo visitors.

The OC was well represented at the workshop, including board members Rob Shumaker, Roger Nelson, Michael Sowards, Shirley Randolph, Barbara Shaw, in addition to Russon and Rosen. OC members Juanita Kempe and Dillu Ashby also sold merchandise and distributed information at a booth in the conference hall lobby.