Birute Galdikas

h reliable data and distinctive photographic footage, bringing the orangutan to widespread public attention for the first time. Their work, first published in National Geographic in 1975, also made them internationally known.

Dedicated to their research, Galdikas and Brindamour remained at Camp Leakey for five years, spending thousands of hours observing many different orangutans. For Galdikas, what began as a Ph.D. study of a few years evolved into a lifelong dedication not only to understanding the nature of the orangutan but also to preserving the creature's rapidly diminishing natural habitat.

Galdikas remained in Borneo after the birth of her first child, Binti Paul, in 1976. After she and her husband divorced in 1979, Brindamour returned to Canada and sent for Binti to live with him a year and a half later. Galdikas subsequently married a Dayak tribesman. Her husband, Pak Bohap, is a horticulturalist and also codirector of the Borneo orangutan program. They have two children and Galdikas still spends part of each year in Borneo, doing research and educating people on conservation measures to preserve orangutans and forests alike. The other part of the year she teaches at Simon Fraser University, in Burnaby, British Columbia, Canada, and presides over the Orangutan Foundation International in Los Angeles, an organization she cofounded in 1986.

Galdikas has maintained one of the longest field studies of any mammal ever done. Her meticulous research on the orangutan's eating habits has led to a deeper understanding of Indonesia's biological diversity and to much new information on the rain forest itself. Among many other “first observations,” she verified that adult orangutans live alone, unlike either gorillas or chimpanzees, and that in the wild female orangutans give birth only about every eight years.

As well as having published two books, including her autobiography, Reflections of Eden: My Years with the Orangutans of Borneo, in 1995, and scores of scientific articles and reviews, Galdikas has received numerous prestigious awards for her tireless championing of the orangutan cause. Her work has also generated international concern over the plight of the orangutan and has led the Indonesian government to institute strict laws against poachers.