All primates -- humans and great apes -- descended from a common ancestor.

We did not just miraculously "drop from the clouds." We evolved.

https://www.rd.com/culture/orangutans-just-like-humans/



These people are helping save orangutans in Sumatra, Indonesia.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/photography/2020/02/17/these-people-are-helping-save-orangutans-sumatra-indonesia/

Last fall, The Washington Post partnered with Visura in an open call for photo essays. The Post selected two winners and three honorable mentions out of hundreds of submissions. We are presenting one of the honorable mentions on In Sight: Belgian photographer Alain Schroeder and his project about orangutan rescues in Sumatra, Indonesia.

Schroeder says this story came about after he visited Bukit Lawang in Sumatra as a tourist hoping to see orangutans. His trip turned out to be fruitful in more ways than one. He did indeed see orangutans, but his encounter with the animals also sparked a feeling of connection with them. Because of this, he decided to do some research and then return wearing a photojournalist hat.

Schroeder gave In Sight this account of his experience with the orangutans (it has been lightly edited for brevity):

It begins with a rescue in the jungle, actually a rubber plantation, where I quickly discover the number of people involved in saving just one orangutan.

A call from a local man with the Orangutan Information Center (OIC) in Medan has triggered a meticulously coordinated effort, starting with the immediate dispatch of a two-man team to the site to verify the information: Is it actually an orangutan? What is the precise location of the sighting? Has more than one person seen the animal(s)?

“We get three to four reports like this a month,” says Panut Hadisiswoyo, founder and chairman of the OIC. “Before we allocate full resources, we want to be certain.”

Within hours, I’m tagging along with North Sumatra team leader Bedul Siregar, veterinarian Tengku “Jeni” Adawiyah and other members of the Human Orangutan Conflict Response Unit for the five-hour drive to Bangun Sari, a small village in Aceh province where nine of us settle in with a welcoming family for the night. Deafening rain pummels the aluminum roof as I fall asleep.

It’s 7 a.m. as the team heads single file into the rubber plantation for what they refer to as a morning walk. Orangutans spend their days moving through the tops of trees feeding primarily on fruit, bark and vegetation. Every evening, they build a new nest. But their routine is being sabotaged. Haphazard clearing of the forest is forcing the animals into plantations as they search for food and shelter, resulting in conflict with plantation workers.

Two scouts have gone ahead. Communicating by walkie-talkie, the search lasts three hours with no result. Wilted from the effort, the group returns to the village. Just as lunch is finishing up, the call comes in, and within minutes, I’m again trying to keep up in the thick, muddy brush. And then, there it is, high up in a tree. Team members vigorously shake branches and call out, enticing the animal down to within safe range for Rudi to fire the tranquilizer.

The orangutan struggles against the effects of the dart, eventually releasing its grip and falling toward an outstretched net. Demun and Bedul brace for the catch, but the animal’s weight combined with the extremely steep, slick terrain sends the trio (and myself) sliding. The groggy orangutan tries to lift her arms in protest but gently drifts into sleep as the men secure the net and carry her down to level ground where Jeni, the vet, performs a thorough medical check. Although blind in one eye, with several air rifle wounds on her body, the 15-year-old female is in good condition and everyone agrees she is fit to be released back into the forest. It’s a race back to the jeep to secure her in the transport cage before the sedative wears off.

In the oppressive humidity, I struggle to recover from the gargantuan effort. The problem now is there is a palm oil plantation standing between us and a viable release location in the Tenggulun protected forest. Hoping to shave four hours off the journey, Bedul puts in a call to the BKSDA Conservation Agency to request permission to drive through the plantation.

Night has fallen when the cage is placed flush against a tree. As the door panel is lifted, the orangutan bolts straight up and disappears into the foliage in a flash as the onlookers gasp. The weary team returns to the host family for the night, exhausted but proud of the work accomplished.

Over the next few months, I participate in several more rescues with either an immediate translocation or, if the orangutan is injured, transport to the fully equipped medical facilities at the Quarantine and Rehabilitation Center run by the Sumatran Orangutan Conservation Program (SOCP) in Sibolangit, North Sumatra.

I return often to the Quarantine Center to observe routine medical checks. Orangutans like Hope, Leuser, Chrismon or Fahzren, who have been severely injured or domesticated, will live out their lives here or at the Haven, the SOCP’s soon-to-open protected sanctuary nearby. But the greatest reward for everyone working with orangutans is the release of those who have assimilated the skills to survive in the wild.

Since the center opened in 2011, more than 100 orangutans have been reintroduced into their natural habitat. “Every orangutan we are able to release is a major contribution to a new, genetically viable, self-sustaining wild population, and to the long-term survival prospects of this critically endangered species,” SOCP Director Ian Singleton noted in a bittersweet moment of separation.

For months now, I have shadowed the members of several organizations coordinating their efforts to rescue, rehabilitate and release orangutans. Beyond their dedication, I have witnessed passion transform to pride with every intervention.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 02/18/2020 02:25PM by anybody.

“The orangutan struggles against the effects of the dart, eventually releasing its grip and falling toward an outstretched net.”

Why use tranquilizer darts? Reading a passage from the BoM would have the same effect.

IT DOESN'T MATTER!!!
WHAT MATERS IS WHAT ARE YOU DOING NOW?

There may be a connection.

Correctly understanding the past may serve to help understand the present and to plan for the future.

But it requires an open mind, not a mind convinced it already knows The Truth. Aye, there’s the rub...

There is no future different from the past if people continue as they always have learning the same truths from generation to generation.

Truth matters. It needs no explanation.

So too curiosity and the process of training one's mind. Then there is the light that evolution casts on religion and on what it means to be a human.

Anybody wrote:

>>Humans and primates descended from a common ancestor.

Humans are primates.

I think you mean humans and the great apes (gorillas, chimps and bonobos, orangs, and gibbons).

Orangutans May Be Closest Human Relatives, Not Chimps

The controversial study relies on physical, as opposed to genetic, similarities.

https://www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/2009/06/orangutans-human-relative-evolution/

That's Simon Southerton, of course. He characterized NG as "soft science," and I "get" what he's saying (insert big rant about how Rupert Murdoch acquired the publication; it was far better in the days of the Grosvenor family, relatives of Alexander Graham Bell who founded the magazine).

The genetic evidence showing our species' close relationship with chimps and bonobos is pretty strong,

I'm with the scientist quoted at the end of the NG piece:

>>Anthropologist Nick Newton-Fisher, of the University of Kent in the U.K., described the human evolutionary path implied by the new study as a "wacky idea."

>>"Given the weight of evidence from the genetics," he said, he would be reluctant to accept the new findings.

Incidentally, I've mentioned this before: Look up the term "neoteny."

That explains how we acquired our non-opposable big toe, which is really helpful in contributing to our ability to walk upright.

AFAIK, there's only one hardcore evolution denier that posts here. **Nothing** will convince him. He wants to crack open an egg and find a kangaroo (his words).

Said poster displays the scientific acumen of a 2 year old.

Specifically, "I don't believe it because I don't want to, and you can't make me. Nyah nyah", said repeatedly and in a gleeful tone of voice.

I thought it was crack open a duck egg and find a dog, but it could have been a kangaroo. Australia actually has egg laying mammals, like the platypus.

Monotremes rule!

Though they don't rule much.

Big wheel of evolution keep on turning
Evolve me how to see my kin
Singing songs about the savannah-land
I miss 'ole' Africa once again
And I think it's a sin, yes

There is increasing evidence that Neanderthals buried their dead formally. Some of the burials seem sentimental--flowers, etc--but other graves show things associated with rebirth like burials in the fetal position and/or decorated with red ocher, both of which symbolize passage through the birth canal.

Then there's the cave art, which shows evidence of abstract thinking. Perhaps it's time to recognize that all these hominid groups that were capable of interbreeding were on the same intellectual spectrum as HSS and shared a great many intellectual traits, including abstract reasoning, empathy for others, religiosity, and perhaps even speech. The differences are of degree.

Humans love to draw lines, particularly between themselves and others. The defensiveness is understandable but mistaken.



https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/antiquity/article/new-neanderthal-remains-associated-with-the-flower-burial-at-shanidar-cave/E7E94F650FF5488680829048FA72E32A

Their eyes are so beautiful.

I really wish we'd stop pretending Creationists are relevant. They are not. They're little more than testimony of how stunningly stupid our species can be at times.

They might look like your relatives, but they don't look much like mine. Small foreheads, monstrously long arms, short legs and ginger body hair all over don't run in my family. We don't tend to pick fleas off each other or chuck our feces at our enemies either.

That and we've developed this thing called technology, along with a written culture.

"We don't tend to pick fleas off each other or chuck our feces at our enemies either."

These are some of my favorite pastimes.

https://psychology.stackexchange.com/questions/7610/what-is-the-extent-of-social-grooming-in-humankind

The literature on social grooming in humans mentions:

examples of grooming, most of which are unique to humans, include: running fingers through another’s hair, giving massages, washing the body or hair, shaving, removing lint or hair from another’s clothing, swatting away insects, and giving manicures or pedicures, and removing pus from blemishes or wounds. Grooming for humans can also include applying something to the skin or body as with lotion, nail polish, or make-up

I think that evolution is the most likely source of our species. But there are some puzzling questions then about evolution. Why is it that written language goes back only a very short span within our recent evolutionary history which likely took place over several million years? How long would it take for an orangutan lineage take to reach current human levels of intelligence? What could cause such changes to take place in some species and not in others? I think that my dog knows me better than any member of the primate groups could, with the only exceptions being other humans. Somehow canines adapt much quicker to change over time than primates do. What causes that to happen? Can we create and document those conditions to prove anything? Some fundamental upgrade of the brain has to take place the causes of which can't be fully explained. The upgrade seems to happen rather quickly in-between relative long periods of no changes over long periods of time. Then those fundamental changes are handed down to our offspring when we reproduce. So it's not like one individual is smarter than others as an anomaly. A permanent upgrade to the species happens all at once (relatively speaking). Lots of questions. Without those answers, evolution is more of a belief than a science. Since evolution is the most plausible, I go with evolution. But it's a belief more than science. Why can't we model evolutionary growth based on our past (causes and effects), and simulate to shape and predict accurately future human evolution?

Well some people might be related to that monkey but not me! I don't see any resemblance even though she's very cute! The thing about Darwinism is that we've learned so much more since 1840. To be stuck in that year with that idea is still the dark ages. I mean come on people think this through, it's the 21 century now for crying out loud, Let's believe what actual science says 'now', not some silly idea with major unbridgeable flaws from 1840.

"On the origin of Species" was published in 1859. So yes, our understanding leaped forward since the 1840's.

Historian