November 08, 2004

• Very cool! And while you're at it, consider becoming a chimpanzee guardian. I had the great fortune to briefly meet Galdikas' colleague, Jane Goodall a couple weeks back. Her favorite animal is the dog. Who knew?
• This is sad, and the campaign necessary. Why? ...if human beings do not significantly alter the course of their behavior regarding the orangutan, conservationaists expect the species to go extinct in the wild within the next ten years...{my bold] Ten years -- not much time.
• Its always intiqued me that Leakey only chose women as species motherers. Goodall, Fossey, and Galdikas. Doesn't say much for the male half of the genotype, sadly.
• Should any profits accrue from the MoFi t-shirt thingy....
• Great idea, islander.
• Its always intiqued me that Leakey only chose women as species motherers. Leakey hoped that studies of the primate species most closely related to human beings--chimpanzees, gorillas, and orangutans--would shed light on the behavior of human ancestors. He chose Goodall because he believed that as a woman she would be more patient and careful than a male observer and that as someone with little formal training she would be more inclined to describe what she saw rather than what she thought she should be seeing.
• :(
• NEVVAH!!!
• Ook.
• Genes record orangutans' decline
• Sad, but not at all hard to believe, if ye've ever seen a big logging operation -- (and not just in Indonisia). Often think the inventor of the chainsaw has accrued immence bad karma.
• Cat comforts grieving orangutan at zoo That's teh sw33t.
• Its always intiqued me that Leakey only chose women as species motherers. Goodall, Fossey, and Galdikas. Doesn't say much for the male half of the genotype, sadly. Male primates are threatening to other male primates. In the first few pages of Galdikas' "Reflections of Eden" she notes that she could easily touch one of the orangutan babies while it was held by the mother, but the feeder who had worked for years alongside the same ape almost had his arm torn off when he came near. Throughout the rest of the book there are numerous incidents between the male and female workers at Camp Leakey and the orangutans that strengthen this claim. Leakey also believed that women were naturally more observant due to evolutionary instincts necessary to keep a child alive as women had, for the greater part of our primate evolutionary branch, been the primary, if not solitary, care-giver and protector for offspring. Interestingly, unlike Goodall or Fossey, Galdikas was the only member of Leakey's "angels" who did have a Phd, and it's very hard to say that her work with the orangutans is worse off for it.
• Oops, saw the date of the comment I'm responding to. Now I stopped time!
• Chimp, I respect you for the grave consideration and careful composition of your answer. But TWO years--sheesh!
• Better late than never. I salute you, InsolentChimp.
• Agreed. Plus the cat story was teh squeeeee.
• Online dating is planned for orangutans
• Fires on the island of Borneo may have killed up to 1,000 orangutans, say animal protection workers in Indonesia.
• pete's article with a pic.
• Trained to be free: Orangutans at school
• The Last Stand of the Orangutan
• Orangutan Loose in Park
• Aw man I can't believe that have video from that. Look here was the deal - I needed some batteries, okay? I go to get batteries, there was this chick I used to know and we started talking then the next thing I wake up totally wasted in a park. I have no idea what that chick put in my drink.
• 'Orangutans' scale wall, save forest
• A barrow-load of orphaned baby orang-utans