Inspired Magazine

Previous page A baby
orangutan clings to its
mother. Destruction
of habitat is pushing
orangutans to the brink
of extinction.
Below Rainforest
destruction threatens
orangutan populations.
Opposite page
Orangutans have
captured Leif’s heart
with their big
personalities and
enormous capacity
for love.
Leif Cocks scanned the gloom of the rainforest,
a tangle of trees casting a green glow through
the undergrowth, when he discerned a flash
of orange in the tree tops far above. He called
out, hoping the form may be the orangutan he
yearned to see. The creature swung through the
canopy towards him. A smile spread across Leif’s
face. He’d recognise this orangutan anywhere.
For here before him was Temara, the zoo-bred
orangutan he’d organised to be released into the
wild two years before.
Here they were meeting as equals for the first
time. While they’d enjoyed an excellent relationship
while Temara was in captivity, she was now here
on her own terms – a wild animal free to go where
she wished. And this creature was choosing to see
her former keeper. She not only approached Leif
but swung down through the trees to greet him,
extending out her arm, grasping Leif’s hand and
looking him in the eye.
For Leif, it was an emotionally charged moment –
a reward for the years of anguish he’d experienced
in his long fight to save a fast-shrinking orangutan
population from extinction. For this was a good
news story amid a horrendous chapter in this great
ape’s fight for survival, a win among incidents so
appalling they sound like atrocities from a genocide.
BATTLE FOR SURVIVAL
While most of us realise that orangutans are at
risk from deforestation for logging and palm oil
plantations, fewer people understand just how
terrible their fate. For those animals not killed
along with the destruction of their habitat begin to
starve, forcing them to seek out food from nearby
farms. Angered at the damage to their livelihoods,
the farmers retaliate. They take machetes and
slash down mother orangutans, tearing their
babies from their dying grasp to sell as pets. They
douse them in petrol and set them alight. They
crush their skulls with blunt weapons. They shoot
out their eyes with low-powered guns.
Despite such atrocities, Leif knows of not a single
incident in which an orangutan, a powerful beast,
has killed a human. Leif says these animals possess
a sense of empathy, of altruism, not usually
associated with animals. He says their destruction
is as horrific as the loss of a human child.
Their future continues to look bleak. Some of the
richest and most biodiverse forests in Indonesia
are earmarked for commercial exploitation under
a plan drafted by the government of Aceh. This
area in Indonesia is home to some of the 14,000
remaining Sumatran orangutans. Should the plans
go ahead, Leif believes the Sumatran orangutan
will slip into extinction within a few years. While
the Bornean orangutan population is bigger, at
about 60,000, they too face extinction without
intervention.
Leif is in a desperate battle to save them. But
what compelled Leif to dedicate his life to saving
these magnificent creatures?
MEETING ORANGUTANS
Rewind 30 years and Leif was a young zoo
keeper at Perth Zoo in Western Australia, when he
was offered the job of orangutan keeper. Things
were different back then, safety standards laxer.
So Leif had no idea that some people regarded
these human-like apes as dangerous. He thought
nothing of entering their enclosure to have lunch
with them. And it didn’t take long for a mutual
admiration to emerge. For Leif quickly came to
realise orangutans weren’t like other animals. Here
was a highly intelligent, emotionally and culturally
complex creature, with DNA that is 97 percent
identical to humans.
Not only did he come to love the orangutans, it
appeared they felt the same way about Leif. “We
really got along,” Leif says. “What I discovered
is that orangutans are people – they are as
intelligent as a five or six year old [human]. They
are self-aware. I realised they didn’t belong in
captivity. They needed to be free in the wild.” And
so began Leif’s quest to save them.
GROWING FASCINATION
Leif’s fascination with orangutans grew the more
time he spent with them. He recounts the story
of one female orangutan at the zoo who seemed
intent on escaping. She’d remove every third
brick from the wall to create a ladder which would
enable her to climb the wall to freedom. However,
she had enough guile to know Leif’s job was to foil
her bids for freedom. So, this wily orangutan would
keep a look out for Leif and rush to replace the
bricks she had prised lose whenever she saw Leif
approaching.
22
LEIF COCKS