Saving the 'Man of the Forest'

Richard Zimmerman, Orangutan Outreach executive director, was in a panic. When I recently contacted him for this story, he had just learned that 13 orangutansincluding two babieswere trapped in a small patch of rainforest in Central Kalimantan that was about to be destroyed and converted into a palm oil plantation. "There isn't enough food for them and they have no way to escape. They will starve to death unless they are relocated to a safe area. If they stay there, they'll wander onto the neighboring plantation in search of food. The adults will be slaughtered. The babies will be captured alive and sold to animal smugglers in the illegal pet trade. We cannot allow this to happen," he said.

Desperate to prevent this calamity, Richard's organization had begun sourcing the funding for a rescue operation to be carried out by their partners, the Center for Orangutan Protection (COP). The entire operation will require approximately 10 people and last 10 days. As it turned out, the COP met with authorities and were able to go in and get all the orangutans out and moved to a safe forest several hours away.