A life’s calling

What was your first encounter with orangutans?

I first met orangutans when I was a teenager during a work placement at a zoo. I guess I did fall in love with them at that time, but in my wildest imagination I never thought I’d be working with them one day. I was just a normal 14-year-old girl living in Northern Jutland, Denmark. Orangutans were far away. But when I finally did meet them as a mature adult, I was very much taken with that ‘human way’ they look at you. They have eyes just like us; they have the white around the pupil, and the iris as well, and their faces say it all. If I look at a gorilla or a chimpanzee, I don’t feel the same thing. Orangutans remind me of little Buddhas. They’re very much at ease with themselves - they’re one with nature, laid-back, slow moving. Chimpanzees are probably more like us because they have warfare, but it’s the calmness of the orangutan that speaks to me. For some reason, I can read orangutans fairly easily.

When watching orphaned orangutans, you can feel the loss of the mother. You can feel the fear. I would often think about how the mother had been killed, what