Birute Galdikas, the last of 'Leakey's Angels', passed away

[Bob]

She did good for the world. May others carry on her work. RIP

Birutė Galdikas, primatologist who spent a lifetime studying & defending orangutans, has died at 79

In the early 1970s, orangutans occupied an ambiguous place in science. They were known to exist, of course, but remained poorly understood, rarely observed, and difficult to study in the wild. Their forest habitat in Borneo and Sumatra was still vast, though already beginning to change. Logging...

news.mongabay.com

 

[harryopal1]

She did good for the world. May others carry on her work. RIP

Birutė Galdikas, primatologist who spent a lifetime studying & defending orangutans, has died at 79

In the early 1970s, orangutans occupied an ambiguous place in science. They were known to exist, of course, but remained poorly understood, rarely observed, and difficult to study in the wild. Their forest habitat in Borneo and Sumatra was still vast, though already beginning to change. Logging...

news.mongabay.com

A person of such great integrity and bravery acting in the face of greedy and at times violent logging interests. I recall back in the 70s a former Malaysian Minister of agriculture or the environment declaring that letting trees rot in the jungle was tanamount to criminal behaviour. Whenever I see pictures of what is now the great metropolis of Kuala Lumpur I am reminded that so much of the development came from the destruction of the once magnificent rain forests of Sarawak and Sabah.