With the Apes: Birute Galdikas Reaches Camp Leakey
"I felt to the marrow of my bones . . . that the apes surrounding me were refugees from paradise, a paradise that we humans left behind to seek our destinies on the savannas and open lands of the earth. They were survivors of Eden." In my prior years, the time I spent aiding the orangutans in Borneo would never have come to mind as the deciding factor in the path my legacy would take. I mean, countless people like me decide to spend their lives and devote their time to working with the animals and nature that surround us. However, now as I am nearing the ripe old age of 75, my years working and traversing the globe with the apes that I have grown to call family are coming to a close, and I …show more content…
Whenever asked about the time in my life where I was most certain about my actions, working at Camp Leakey would consistently be my answer; it was the place where I truly understood how real and …show more content…
It had not been more that 10 minutes for when we started our ascent, but already my heart was filling with an overarching sense of pride and joy for what I would be doing here, and what others have already set out to do. The crunching noise of the jeep climbing over the rocks and leafage found on the floor of the jungle rang through my ears as we neared toward the central building, nothing too impressive in terms of architecture design, but for a building in the middle of a forest it was unlike anything I have ever seen. Looking back at this time now, in 2017, I could only remember how the anticipation and excitement that was thoroughly mixed in with fear, all of the emotions that I couldn't contain, unwinded on me that day, filling me with a sense of purpose and reason for undertaking the occupation that I did. I can only begin to explain the importance of this event and the years that soonafter followed by saying, “My first years in the field were years of discovery. Merely finding a wild orangutan was exciting… following an orangutan for a week or more was a triumph. … Almost everything I learned about orangutans was new.” However, the years of discovery did not only pertain to the orangutans I too discovered more
"I felt to the marrow of my bones . . . that the apes surrounding me were refugees from paradise, a paradise that we humans left behind to seek our destinies on the savannas and open lands of the earth. They were survivors of Eden." In my prior years, the time I spent aiding the orangutans in Borneo would never have come to mind as the deciding factor in the path my legacy would take. I mean, countless people like me decide to spend their lives and devote their time to working with the animals and nature that surround us. However, now as I am nearing the ripe old age of 75, my years working and traversing the globe with the apes that I have grown to call family are coming to a close, and I …show more content…
Whenever asked about the time in my life where I was most certain about my actions, working at Camp Leakey would consistently be my answer; it was the place where I truly understood how real and …show more content…
It had not been more that 10 minutes for when we started our ascent, but already my heart was filling with an overarching sense of pride and joy for what I would be doing here, and what others have already set out to do. The crunching noise of the jeep climbing over the rocks and leafage found on the floor of the jungle rang through my ears as we neared toward the central building, nothing too impressive in terms of architecture design, but for a building in the middle of a forest it was unlike anything I have ever seen. Looking back at this time now, in 2017, I could only remember how the anticipation and excitement that was thoroughly mixed in with fear, all of the emotions that I couldn't contain, unwinded on me that day, filling me with a sense of purpose and reason for undertaking the occupation that I did. I can only begin to explain the importance of this event and the years that soonafter followed by saying, “My first years in the field were years of discovery. Merely finding a wild orangutan was exciting… following an orangutan for a week or more was a triumph. … Almost everything I learned about orangutans was new.” However, the years of discovery did not only pertain to the orangutans I too discovered more