Orangutans: Wizards of the Rain Forest - Hardcover

This extraordinary and definitive book about orangutans is based on the ten years of research that author and scientist Anne Russon has undertaken studying orangutan behavior.

The only great apes found in Asia, these arboreal wizards are by nature elusive and solitary, and inhabit nearly inaccessible tropical rain forests. The tragedy is that orangutans are now near extinction, surviving in the wild only on the islands of Borneo and Sumatra where human influx is rapidly appropriating their habitat.

Orangutan populations have been further devastated by the human trade in captive primates. For those orangutans who do survive captivity, there are special sanctuaries in Indonesia and Malaysia which offer rehabilitation and a return to forest life.

Russon includes a scientific history of orangutans, a description of orangutans and their natural habitat, their astonishing behavior patterns, rehabilitation operations at Camp Leakey and Wanariset, the politics of orangutan rescue work, a look at orangutans released back into the forest, as well as what the future holds for these primates.

With more than 100 full color photographs taken by the author during her visits to the rain forests, this is an absorbing and instructive look at the complex and unusual world of orangutans.

Anne E. Russon is an Associate Professor in the Department of Psychology at York University in Toronto. She has been studying intelligence and learning in orangutans since 1989, in Indonesian Borneo. Her research was affiliated with the Orangutan Research and Conservation Project until 1993 and with the Wanariset Orangutan Reintroduction Project since 1994. She co-edited a book on great ape intelligence, "Researching into Thought: The Minds of the Great Apes".