Portrait of Schnitz (On World Orangutan Day)

Meet my friend Schnitz on World Orangutan Day!

Photo Credit: The Virginia Zoo

I love orangutans, and I'm very fond of this one. Schnitz is the big man on campus… the Virginia Zoo campus. He's kind of a lovable slob. When he makes his nest at night, it's just heaps of straw any old which way; as long as he has his special blanket, he's comfortable.

Preliminary sketch (eyes): "Schnitz"

On his birthday this summer he relaxed in his "recliner" - the front left corner of his enclosure, by the window. In this favorite spot he regally ignored all visitors and his best girl Pepper to munch on his birthday treat - a whole bundle of branches just for him.

Schnitz is in his thirties, late middle age for a captive orangutan and elderly for wild orangutans. He and Pepper are both zoo born and were playmates when they were little. They were reunited in 1995, then came to the Virginia Zoo together in 2011. They are a bonded pair. Once I saw them sitting together with their arms around each other's shoulders. He gently leaned over to kiss her cheek. 

"Schnitz" with his blanket.
I hoped to be finished with Schnitz's portrait today, but I only got most of the blocking-in done.

Schnitz is a hybrid of the two species of orangutan, the Sumatra and the Borneo. So is Pepper. That doesn't happen under the AZA Species Survival Plan these days. It doesn't make this couple any less wonderful, but they aren't a breeding pair. 

The goals of the Species Survival Plan are to provide a self-sustaining, genetically diverse captive population of orangutans for education, to maintain these critically endangered animals, and if possible to help prevent their extinction. Many people express dismay at the captivity of intelligent primates like orangutans. I agree wholeheartedly with them. I wish all orangutans were wild and free in their natural habitat. 

Photo Credit: Rhett Butler/Mongabay

The sad fact is, that habitat is rapidly disappearing. The forests are being replaced by palm oil plantations.  Just 15% of the forest species can survive in the plantations. Orangutans aren't one of them.  Palm oil acreage worldwide increased from 15 million acres in 1990 to 40 million acres in 2011 according to the Union for Concerned Scientists.  Palm oil is used in everything from french fries to shampoo.

Credit: Union of Concerned Scientists

Use the Palm Oil Scorecard to see how the companies you make purchases from shape up in using non-deforestation palm oil.

Lately I've seen the term "compassionate conservation". Though he didn't use that term, Dr. Carl Safina, author of Beyond Words, describes it as the mindset that animals are not "WHAT" but "WHO", individuals who matter to their families and their friends, who have emotions like us, think, and in some cases grieve like we do. Individual beings who can love, by any definition we use for the many ways we humans feel love. That's not unicorns and rainbows. Decades of scientific evidence have led here. 

So this is a small tribute to one individual orangutan who I think is interesting, serene, beautiful, and intelligent. I don't know what he thinks or how it feels to be Schnitz. I can only enjoy being near him and admiring him. Every time I see him, I wonder how his wild fellows are faring. Are we smart enough to save their habitat?

Happy World Orangutan Day, Schnitz!