Canadian orangutan scientist Biruté Galdikas dead at 79

Biruté Mary Galdikas, a Canadian scientist who dedicated her life to the study and conservation of orangutans, has died. She was 79.

Galdikas died in Los Angeles early Tuesday morning with loved ones by her side after a battle with lung cancer, according to the Orangutan Foundation International, which Galdikas founded in 1986 to support her research in Borneo, Indonesia.

She will be most remembered for her "unwavering dedication" to orangutans, said Ruth Linsky, a PhD candidate at Simon Fraser University. Linsky was mentored by Galdikas, worked with her at the research station in Borneo and is on the board of the foundation's Canadian branch. She was with Galdikas and close family when she died.

"Everything she did was for them," said Linsky. "She was a really unique soul in that way."

Linksy helped write a statement on the foundation's website that described how Galdikas's five decades in Indonesia "positioned her as the world’s leading expert on orangutans and gave her a platform from which she passionately advocated." 

"Her efforts most certainly single-handedly preserved the largest remaining population of wild orangutans that remains today," the statement said, referring to the research station Galdikas established in what is now Tanjung Puting National Park.

Before Galdikas began her research, her professors told her they believed that orangutans would be impossible to study in the wild because they were too elusive, wary of humans and lived deep in swampy forests.

"I got skepticism. I got doubt. People said it couldn't be done," she told The Current's Matt Galloway in 2021. 

Undeterred, she travelled in 1971 to Tanjung Puting in central Borneo with her then-husband, photographer Rod Brindamour. 

"Nobody had ever been there. Nobody knew anybody who had been there," she said. "So it was really a voyage into terra incognita," Galdikas recalled.

The orangutans were shy, and Galdikas said it took some of them many years to get used to her. Nevertheless, her dedication, patience and observation came to paint a vivid picture of the lives of these little-known apes — she recorded 400 kinds of food they ate; how they organized their societies, fought and chose mates; and witnessed how they gave birth. One of her interesting discoveries was that orangutans at Tanjung Puting only have a baby every 7.7 years.

Galdikas also set up a rehabilitation centre that has since helped 450 captive orangutans return to the wild. 

Tanjung Puting became a national park in 1983 because of her work.

"I still feel extraordinarily fortunate that God graced me with years in the forest," with orangutans, she told Galloway.