Visiting the Orangutans of Borneo.
Last year I had the opportunity to visit the Orangutan Sancturary in Sandakan, Malayisa. When I arrived I was told that the Sancturary is not forcing the Ape´s to come out and show themselves, there might be a chance that I will not see an Orangutan. Well I got really lucky as you can see on the picture. A young and very currious orangutan came really close, he even tried to steal my friends phone:).
Those animals are incredible, they share 98% of our DNA, they are the closest link between our animalistic past and whatever we became now.
I started to read about Orangutans and that reveald a very sad truth about our relatives.
We (humans) nearly destroyed their natural habitats because of our greed which reflects in the huge amounts of palm oil we need. Palm oil plantations are monocultures which destroy the natural habitat of many animals and a lot of the rainforrest.
And this is really bad.... Apperantly there are Orangutan brothels in some poor regions of south east asia. How sick is that? And the worst part is that the animals are to good-natured to defend themselves. A fully grown male Orangutan is strong enough to tear a human into two halfes, and they choose not to hurt us when we harm them. Who is the animal here.
Unfortunatley I have to say the more I travel and the more I see, the more I have to realize how much damage mankind is doing to nature.
Steepshot