Orangutan Research and Conservation

Orangutans are endangered due to excessive deforestation. They are incredibly beautiful and intelligent animals. Not to mention the other beautiful animals in the Sumatran jungle ! (Tigers, Slow Loris, etc).

I am heading to Indonesia to the Sumatran jungle for ten months to a year staying at the Suaq research and conservation center. The center is based around conservation, integrating and encouraging the local community into conservation who they hire into permanently and rolling paid positions at the center. My role will be following mothers and their young to study further how orangutans learn and develop, a project supervised by the University of Zurich, Switzerland and Universitas Nasional, Indonesia. We are wanting to learn further how to properly conserve these animals as well as learn about our own human evolutionary roots. The orangutans in this area are further developed than others due to their dense food source and ability to live and interact more closely (e.g. using leaves as umbrellas).

I will be following and tracking the behaviors of the orangutans sometimes over 12 hours a day through the dense and swampy jungle, full of all the jungle creatures you can imagine. I will be collecting research 3 days on with one day 'off' at the camp, helping sort through the data and other tasks. The conditions are basic with power only running a couple hours a day and clothes being hand washed in the river. I can visit the local town once every couple months and learning Indonesian will be compulsory to be able to work with the local research assistants.

Learn more about the center here: https://suaq.org/

Unfortunately, my position is unpaid so I’m trying to raise and save before I go, thank you!