Letter from Richard Zimmerman, Director, Orangutan Outreach

Learn more about adopting an Orangutan by clicking here.

Last week at Grapes with the Apes I met Richard Zimmerman, Director of the Orangutan Outreach program at the National Zoo. He convinced me immediately that I needed to adopt an Orangutan. It cost just $120 dollars and your donation is working to preserve the way of life for this animals. Below see an email from Richard and I encourage you to go online and donate today.

______________________________________

Orangutan Outreach began as a dream. I've been quietly involved in orangutan conservation for many years, but I always felt I should be doing more to help them. I was fortunate to spend some time in Indonesia several years ago when my friend and colleague Michelle Desilets (Director of BOS UK) invited me to Nyaru Menteng to meet her dear friend Lone Droscher Nielsen and see the facility. Lone is a very special person and my admiration for what she is doing goes beyond words.

I have had an inexplicable love for these majestic red apes ever since I was a child. I've spent hundreds of hours watching them interact with each other and their keepers in zoos all over the world. I've missed trains because of orangutans (Berlin), been given gifts from them (Mexico City, Toronto), painted with them (Houston) and even gotten married standing beside them (Honolulu). I'm fortunate to have a wife who is very understanding!

Few things in life are absolutely clear, but from the very moment I set foot in Nyaru Menteng, I knew I had to help Lone and her project. This safe haven for orphaned orangutans is like nothing else on earth. Lone is literally providing these innocent victims of the palm oil industry with a second chance at life. When I returned to New York I began helping Michelle run the BOS UK website, but after all that I'd seen in Borneo, I knew something had to be done to in the US to help Lone. So I decided to create a sister organization to BOS UK in the US.

Orangutan Outreach is on one hand an attempt to share my love for orangutans with the rest of the world, but there is much more to it. As an organization, our goals are simple enough 1) To bring attention to the plight of orangutans in the wild, 2) To help protect orangutans and their rainforest habitat, and 3) To raise much-needed funds for Nyaru Menteng. In pursuit of these goals, we have formed an alliance with Borneo Orangutan Survival (BOS), the Indonesian NGO that manages Nyaru Menteng and several other projects in Borneo.

Thanks to Animal Planet's 'Orangutan Island', which is filmed at Nyaru Menteng, Orangutan Outreach has begun to attract national attention. In fact, most of you found your way to our website as a direct result of the television series. Many of you have even been so moved by the show that you've made donations and adopted our orphans via the online virtual adoption program! Thanks so much to all of you who have done so!

Orangutans are innocent bystanders in mankind's quest to control the environment. The felling of miles and miles of rainforest in order to create oil palm plantations is resulting in the deaths of thousands of orangutans. Palm oil conglomerates are literally altering the face of the earth-- and they have no intention of slowing down. This will happen only if they are faced with public pressure on a grand scale. Only then will we have any hope of saving the orangutans and their rainforest home.

The orangutans need all the help they can get. Please help us spread the word by sharing this newsletter with your friends and family. We have a long road ahead of us, but together we can make a difference!

Thanks to all of you for your continued support!

Richard Zimmerman

Director, Orangutan Outreach