Simon at Sepilok

Had a lovely surprise last weekend. My girlfriend Agnieszka bought me two fabulous Orangutan books and had tracked down an amazing copy of "Life" magazine from 1969. The cover story is titled "Vanishing Wildlife - The Threatened Orangutan". Quite incredible that the problems for Orangutans were being highlighted so long ago too.

The article also mentions a newly created rehabilitation centre in Sabah which is very probably Sepilok, where of course I will be working very soon now!

Back then the big threats were deforestation (because of the demand for wood) and hunting of mothers (to smuggle their babies out for pets). Very little has changed in almost 40 years...

In fact now their forest homes are facing double the threat because of a growing worldwide demand for palm oil.

On BBC2 tonight there was a programme called "Apes in Danger - Orang-utan" which highlighted the scale of palm oil production in Borneo. As global demand for palm oil increases even more forest areas are being cut down to create plantations. Hard to believe that 1 in 10 supermarket products now contain palm oil...
Take a look at: http://www.bbc.co.uk/sn/tvradio/programmes/apeweek/apes_in_danger.shtml
for more info.