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Birute Galdikas, who worked to save wild orang utans in Borneo, dies at 79
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Dr Birute Galdikas' half-century of research and conservation made her one of the world’s leading experts on the elusive and critically endangered great ape.
PHOTO: ORANGUTAN FOUNDATION INTERNATIONAL/FACEBOOK
Richard Sandomir
Dr Birute Galdikas, a primatologist who fulfilled her childhood ambition to study and preserve the lives of wild orang utans in the tropical rainforests of Borneo, where her half-century of research and conservation made her one of the world’s leading experts on that elusive and critically endangered great ape, died on March 24 in Los Angeles. She was 79.
Her death, in a hospital, was caused by lung cancer, according to Orangutan Foundation International, which she started in 1986.
