We’ve all seen it by now as it the biggest primate news this year, but is it real?
The United Kingdom’s Daily Mail released an article on April 26th, 2008 around 11:03pm called Orangutan attempts to hunt fish with spear. The article says, “It is the first time one has been seen using a tool to hunt.” As we ALL know, media certainly has a way of missing the important pieces of information.
Allow me to elaborate.
In 1994, Duke University Primatologist Carel van Schaik was the first to study a group of Orangutan’s in Sumatra (south Asia) whose use of tools exceeded anything scientifically documented. Carel released a book “Among Orangutans: Red Apes and the Rise of Human Culture” that contains evidence of this extraordinary tool-use…
- Back scratchers
- Artificial penises
- Rain hats and leak proof roofs over their sleeping nests
- Collection of food from holes (termites and honey)
- Cemengang tool (used for prying at very hard, razor sharp, spiky fruit called neesia)
- Mattress making tools (e.g. folded branches to mimic bed springs)
- Emitting sounds with leaves or hands to amplify communication
- “Snag-riding,” where they ride falling dead trees, grabbing vegetation before the tree hits the ground
- Using branches rich in leaves to swat away insects or to gather water
- Using leaves as protective a napkin or a glove
This is only 10 of the 24 documented tool-use. Carel believes that these innovations are passed down through social learning. You can read further on his hypothesis at Scientific America’s book review Orangutan Technology or read an interview with Carel by New York times Revealing Behavior in ‘Orangutan Heaven and Human Hell‘. Further to that, Carel and his team have continued studying their findings proving that this theory is extremely plausible: Evidence for Orangutan Culture.
Why is this important?
Recently, I’ve found a couple of sites that are questioning the legitimacy of the photo above and asking if they believe the picture has been altered. Treehugger is one such example, Survey: Is It Real or Photoshopped? One comment replies, “this photo was certainly manipulated with Photoshop or some other program. There is movement with the orangutan and the water, but not with the stick. The artist forgot to add motion blur to his stick layer.” Others are doubting the flawlessness of the stick suggesting that it’s a pole provided by the photographer or saying the story is comparable to Dolphins Evolve Opposable Thumbs ‘Oh Shit,’ says Humanity article from The Onion.
Is it fake?
With that question in mind, I would like to give credit to Gerd Schuster, Willie Smits, and Jay Ullal who are the authors of Thinkers of the Jungle: The Orangutan Report (Jay Ullal is the photographer). This book is very special - and similar to Carel van Shaik’s book - because it reveals scientific evidence of Orangutan behaviour that has never been seen before; an orangutan swimming or using a hunting spear. This book contains imagery that is being referred to as “ground breaking” and is already noted as being respected in the scientific community; check out what The Times says about it Swimming orang-utans’ spearfishing exploits amaze the wildlife experts.
The Daily News clearly indicates the book as the source of the image which is scheduled to be released on May 5th. This press release was meant to create hype and discussion around the book…and it worked!
Knowing what you know now, do you think it is a fake?
11 responses so far ↓
1 Richard Zimmerman // Apr 29, 2008 at 7:34 pm
Hi! Thanks for such an intelligent post. This picture is certainly making the rounds– but you really gave it the attention it deserves.
The photo is 100% real. The orangutan pictured is just one of hundreds living at the Nyaru Menteng Orangutan Rehabilitation Center, which is operated by the Borneo Orangutan Survival Foundation in Borneo (Indonesia) and managed by Lone Droscher Nielsen.
Kaja is a small island in the middle of the Rongan River where several dozen orangutans are living until they can be released back into a safe section of the rainforest. The problem is that due to the unchecked spreading of palm oil plantations, the forest is being cut down and orangutans are being slaughtered. This orangutan, like the 650 others at Nyaru Menteng, is an orphan. He watched as his mother was murdered and his forest home was destroyed.
You can see him and the others on the series “Orangutan Island” on Animal Planet.
Because of deforestation by the palm oil industry, orangutans are predicted to be extinct in the wild in less than 10 years. To learn more about orangutans and how to help them, please visit the Orangutan Outreach website at redapes.org.
Thanks, Rich
Richard Zimmerman
Director, Orangutan Outreach
http://redapes.org
Reach out and save the orangutans!
2 Angel // Apr 30, 2008 at 6:18 am
Poor orangutans and great post with amazing photos! Swim my dear, swim!!!
3 chris // Apr 30, 2008 at 2:06 pm
I was going to comment that I thought it was real, but then read the other commenter, so now we know it wasn’t a fake. Great post - very interesting
4 Shéamus // Apr 30, 2008 at 5:47 pm
Many years ago I was fortunate enough to visit Atlanta Zoo. This was 1999, I think.
Back then, the zoo had this fantastic set-up where the orangutans were basically given free-reign… as long as they stuck to these specially-constructed ropes that were fixed to all these telegraph poles around the park. Which they did. They never came down to the ground, just moved about endlessly on top. It was amazing.
Well, allegedly. Alas, during my time there, the orangutans determined they’d rather sleep than bother with that silly pole malarkey. It was a bit cold for them, we were told. Quite; it was only the middle of August.
That aside, I’m not quite sure how this was ever made into a reality - I have some vague memory of them being ‘taught’ not to go below a certain point on the masts with the use of low-level electric fields - but that might be a personal brain-spaz.
In 2007, the zoo expanded upon this by adding a ‘Game Kiosk’ for the orangutans, called ‘The Orangutan Learning Tree’.
http://www.zooatlanta.org/zoo_news_orang_kiosk.htm
Unfortunately, I don’t see myself going back to Atlanta for some time, but it’s a shame, as I’d love to see it.
Anyway, sorry to digress. Great post, and Mr. Zimmerman seems to have cleared matters up for us.
5 Haley (Big Sis) // May 1, 2008 at 4:24 pm
I haven’t read any other posts yet so I don’t know if I am repeating myself….but watch Orangutan Island….I totally believe this!!! It is amazing to see what these creatures are capable of.
6 Haley (Big Sis) // May 1, 2008 at 4:37 pm
And by the way….Richard Zimmerman
Director from Orangutan Outreach…..I will be sponsoring one of the guys/gals this school year with my class….it is incredible what these programs do! Watch Orangutan Island….you will want to do the same!!!!
7 Haley (Big Sis) // May 1, 2008 at 4:49 pm
Read Kesi’s story along with others at http://redapes.org/adopt-an-orangutan/
sad….but really incredible.
8 Michelle // May 6, 2008 at 1:52 am
The images are real and not manipulated. Carel van Schaik is a long-standing member of the Borneo Orangutan Survival Foundation’s Scientific Advisory Board, as is Dr Anne Russon who has done extensive studies of these orangutans on the islands and will confirm the authenticity of the images.
These are the first documented cases of swimming and use of a hunting tool by orangutans.
Michelle Desilets
Executive Director
Borneo Orangutan Survival Foundation UK
http://www.savetheorangutan.co.uk
9 John Grehan // Sep 11, 2008 at 1:40 pm
No one would be questioning the photo if it were a chimpanzee because everyone believes chimpanzees are our closest primate relatives. The reason ‘everyone’ (almost) believes in the chimpanzee theory is because their similarity in matching DNA bases is supposed to prove it. The irony is that biologically chimpanzees are nothing like us, whereas in many ways orangutans are uniquely human.
Humans and orangutans are uniquely similar in aspects of sexuality, reproduction, physiology, behavior, anatomy, and behavior whereas chimpanzees and gorillas are much more like other primates or even mammals in general. Even in the intelligence stakes orangutans may outclass chimpanzees overall, and in some respects, such as with mechanical devices, orangutans are second to humans. Orangutans, like us, have well developed beards and mustaches in males, a receded hairline with hair over the forehead, and we share the longest hair of any primates (although in different places). Orangutans, like humans, can express a Mona Lisa smile. Recently orangutans have been shown to express contagious laughter.
Orangutans make an enigmatic and as yet undescribed artifact and, as reported in National Geographic to “cradle them like dolls”. One might ask whether they really are dolls. But primate biologists shy away from such possibilities because they cannot accept the possibility that orangutans are our closest living primate relatives, and that this is why the skulls of our early hominid ancestors, the australopiths, also look like orangutans. There are a lot of evolutionary possibilities reflected in this observation of fishing.
John Grehan
10 Betty // Sep 30, 2009 at 8:41 pm
I do believe that a orangutan is smart enough to use a pole, but I don’t understand why the pole in the right picture is so straight while the pole in the left picture is curved. The left one looks more real.
11 Betty // Sep 30, 2009 at 8:46 pm
And I wonder where you got the left picture. All I can find from the media is the right one. It is for curiosity, not that I doubt you.
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