Dr Ian Singleton is a former Zookeeper, having worked with a variety of different species at Whipsnade and Edinburgh zoos before specializing in orangutans when he moved to Jersey Zoo in the British Channel islands in 1989. He then visited Indonesia several times over the years to learn more about wild orangutans until he finally left Jersey in 1996 to begin a Ph.D study of orangutan ranging behavior in the peat swamp forests of Suaq Balimbing, in the Gunung Leuser National Park. On completion of his thesis, he joined with the Swiss-based PanEco Foundation and Yayasan Ekosistem Lestari in 2001 to establish the Sumatran Orangutan Conservation Programme. He is nowadays kept busy working to confiscate illegal pet orangutans and return them to a life in the wild, in field research and monitoring of the remaining wild Sumatran orangutan population, and in efforts to protect their habitat.
HLNTV - Orangutans at risk
Orangutans in Indonesia could be on the brink of extinction all for a product many Americans do not even know they are consuming. The Orangutans natural habitat in Indonesia are allegedly being burned down and decimated to make room for trees that produce palm oil.
Palm oil is a cheap ingredient that is used in almost half the items in American grocery stores. But because palm oil goes by so many different names it can be hard for consumers to identify it in the products they are purchasing.
Jane Velez-Mitchell spoke to Rolf Skar the Forest Campaign Director for Greenpeace USA.