Overview (from Wikipedia.org): Biruté Mary Galdikas, O.C., Ph.D. (born 1946), is a primatologist, conservationist, anthropologist, and author of several books relating to the endangered species orangutan as well as great apes and Tanjung Puting National Park. Well known in the field of modern primatology, Galdikas is recognized by many as the leading authority on orangutans.
Of Lithuanian heritage, Galdikas grew up in Toronto, Canada.
In college she studied psychology and biology. In 1966, Galdikas earned her bachelor’s degrees in psychology and zoology from the University of British Columbia and the University of California, Los Angeles summa cum laude, her master’s degree in anthropology from UCLA in 1969 and her doctorate in anthropology, also from UCLA, in 1978. It was there, as a graduate student, she first met famed Kenyan paleontologist Louis Leakey and expressed her desire to study orangutans in their natural habitat.
Determined to study and understand the elusive “red ape”in the wild, Galdikas convinced Leakey to help find funding for her endeavor, despite his initial reservations. Orangutans are intelligent great apes native to Malaysia and Indonesia. They have long arms and reddish, sometimes brown or orange, hair.
In 1971, Galdikas and her then husband, photographer Rod Brindamour, arrived in one of the world’s few remaining wild places, Tanjung Puting National Park, then a Reserve, in Indonesian Borneo (Kalimantan). Galdikas become the third of a trio of women encouraged by Leakey to study humankind’s nearest relatives, the great apes, in their natural habitats. Known as “Leakey’s Angels”, the other two were Jane Goodall, who studied chimpanzees, and Dian Fossey, who became a martyr in her quest to study and protect mountain gorillas.
The Leakey Foundation, Wilkie Brothers Foundation, and the National Geographic Society helped Galdikas fund her field research on orangutans in Borneo. Before Leakey’s fortuitous decision to sponsor Galdikas as the third of his “Angels”, the orangutan was much less understood than the African great apes. Galdikas went on to further burnish Leakey’s legacy by greatly expanding scientific knowledge of orangutan behavior, habitat, and ecology.
While campaigning actively on behalf of primate conservation, Galdikas continues her field research, among the lengthiest continuous studies of a mammal ever conducted in the history of science. Her husband, Pak Bohap, is a Dayak farmer, tribal elder, and co-director of the orangutan program in Kalimantan. She has also written several books, including a memoir, written long after her fellow “Angels” published theirs, entitled Reflections of Eden. In it, Galdikas describes her experiences at Camp Leakey, her efforts to protect forest and to rehabilitate wildborn ex-captive orangutans and release them into the rain forest.
Dr. Galdikas is currently a Full Professor at Simon Fraser University in Burnaby, British Columbia, and Professor Extraordinaire at Indonesia’s Universitas Nasional in Jakarta. She is also president and co-founder of the Orangutan Foundation International (OFI) in Los Angeles, California. She has received numerous awards for her work, including the Tyler Award as well as the Kalpataru Award, the highest environmental prize given by the Republic of Indonesia, and the Pride of Lithuania award. She was also made an Officer of the Order of Canada. More recently, she was presented with the Key to the City of Las Vegas by Mayor Oscar Goodman!
In 2011 the film BORN TO BE WILD IMAX3D, featuring Galdikas’s work rehabilitating orangutans in Kalimantan and Daphne Sheldrick’s work on orphan elephants in Kenya, was released and gained much critical acclaim.
Scientist, conservationist, educator: for almost four decades Dr. Biruté Mary Galdikas has studied and worked closely with the orangutans of Indonesian Borneo in their natural habitat, and is today the world’s foremost authority on the orangutan.