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Demand for Palm Oil Threatens Orangutans

Critter News

There are only an estimated 50,000 to 60,000 orangutans left in the wild, 90 percent of them in Indonesia, said Serge Wich, a scientist at the Great Ape Trust of Iowa. Over the years, Galdikas has fought off loggers, poachers and miners, but nothing has posed as great a threat to her "babies" as palm oil.

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From Today's New York Times

Animal Ethics

To the Editor: Re “An Ape Types in Iowa” (column, Aug. 9): Gail Collins writes: “Human-ape conversation was a very hot topic back in the late 1960s, when researchers first taught a chimpanzee named Washoe to use sign language. The Great Ape Trust is the only place in America where this kind of research still goes on.”