“You should absolutely never stand between an alpha male and his girlfriend.”
Hakim, Tour Guide
The wildlife stories I grew up with were often pretty scary. My grandfather was once savaged and nearly killed by a sun bear, for example. He kept an orangutan as a pet, which was relatively common in the 1960s. It once gave my mother a playful hug and almost crushed her to death. Stories like this were common.
Orangutans are extremely powerful creatures and you have to respect their nature and their boundaries. On one occasion that reality was demonstrated very clearly to me.
Unlike Gibbons, who are monogamous and have one partner for life, male Orangutans normally have a girlfriend for about a month before they move on to another female. But don’t let that fool you: they are very protective and you should absolutely never stand between an alpha male and his girlfriend.
Well, one day at feeding time, I saw that a couple of careless young orangutans had wandered onto the platform between one such alpha male, Tom, and his girlfriend. Tom was absolutely huge with fingers as big as bananas. There were dozens of tourists there that day, and everyone held their breath as Tom clambered over to a very large tree stump, wrenched it out of the ground, and raised it into the air with one hand. It was a raw demonstration of his immense power, and it delivered exactly the message he wanted because the younger males immediately ran away. I’ll never forget that moment.
Tom reigned as king for ten years, one of the longest serving monarchs we’ve had here. He was such a charismatic character.
Today, protection measures have greatly improved and most locals know orangutans are protected by law, although not everyone grasps their ecological importance. Animals like gibbons, proboscis monkeys, and hornbills are all essential to the rainforest, but orangutans are the keystone species. Their presence ensures the spread of seeds from mother trees, fostering new growth and when they build a nest it allows sunlight to reach the forest floor, aiding regeneration.
If orangutans go extinct, the forest's balance will be lost, and if the forest dies, it means no oxygen.
Meanwhile, Orangutans and the forest brings ecotourism to the area, which provides income for locals, which in turn reduces their need to accept harmful activities like palm oil farming. It also offers education to locals and tourists, and fosters a general appreciation for wildlife.
We must save the forest, and to do that we must protect the orangutans. Our existence as humans and our human communities depends on it.
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