People too?

Orangutan, Toronto Zoo

It’s difficult to do Orang-utans justice in just a few lines; they have such intelligence and depth to them – I still recall being taught about their behaviour, when I was at university and eventually reaching the conclusion that you can make a very good case that they are people too – admittedly, hairy orange ones. When you meet their eye or watch them for any period of time, it’s hard to deny.

One of humanity’s more deplorable activities is the destruction of the Orangs’ habitat (and the habitat of hundreds of others species at the same time), much of it to produce palm oil. So, don’t buy stuff that has unsustainable palm oil in it – at the moment, that apparently includes Tim Horton’s doughnuts and suchlike (sorry, Canadians).

Incidentally, for anyone who doesn’t know, they are not monkeys (contrary to what I hear a lot of people saying at the zoo) – they’re apes, dammit!